Welcome October!

Another week gone by?  Wow, time flies when you're having fun!

Important Information
Harvest Festival:  A date has been chosen for Room 13's Annual Harvest Festival!  The fun is scheduled for Wednesday, October 26 from 12:30 - 2:00pm.  All parents are invited and encouraged to come play math games with their child! I hope to see you all there!

The GRADE:  Students took the GRADE this week - a standardized reading test.  Results from this test will be made available to you toward the end of this month and can be discussed at our parent-teacher conferences.

Math Test:  Thank you all so much for signing and returning the Everyday Math Unit 1 Assessments so quickly!  Aside from a few careless errors here and there, I hope you feel that the assessment was an accurate demonstration of your child's knowledge.  If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to let me know

Our Week in Review
READING
This was our second week with the new reading anthology and we read some great stories!  The theme this week was “making friends” and all the stories we read related to this theme. The main selection this week was Mr. Putter and Tabby Pour the Tea, written by Cynthia Rylant.  Cynthia Rylant is a very well-known children’s author and this story is only one of the many she has written in the Mr. Putter series.  She is also the author of the Henry and Mudge series and the Poppleton series.  

Students have been working very hard on identifying the beginning, middle and end of the stories that they read.  Determining the main events (the plot) is a very important reading strategy and one that should be practiced and reviewed on a regular basis. Suggestion:  Ask your child to tell you about a book that s/he has read by telling you just the important events that happened in the beginning, the middle and the end. 

Since we were so busy with the GRADE this week, students did not have time to complete any reading centers.  We DID have a chance to read in small reading groups, however!!  What did your child read about?

SPELLING
This week, the short vowel spelling pattern continued. Instead of short a and short i, however, most students reviewed words with the short e, short o and short u sound.  Keep an eye out for words with these sounds as you go about your daily life.  Challenge your child to “hunt” for them while you drive, shop or read!  (Remember – just because a word has a certain vowel in it, does NOT mean that it has that short vowel sound!!)

WRITING
Has your child mentioned that s/he has been writing books in school?  They are so excited about the opportunity to author their own books - they BEG to write during their free time!! (Don't believe me??  Ask them!)  My initial goal for Writer's Workshop this year is to get children excited about writing...and I think most are!  Now, we will begin to weave in specific lessons to help them become more sophisticated writers - with clear ideas, good organization, specific word choice, sentence fluency, and appropriate grammar and punctuation.  It's certainly a process - but I think we are on the right track!!  Ask your child to tell you about ONE of the books s/he is writing!

MATH
This week, our Mystery Reader was Mr. Ullman - Maddie's dad!!  Mr. Ullman read a very interesting book about different animals, titled Rare Animals.  Students listened as Mr. Ullman shared facts about whooping cranes, elephants, seals and polar bears!

We began Unit 2 last Friday, and continued on with the lessons this week -focusing primarily on addition.   Early in the week, students learned to solve and create addition number stories and the 3D number stories that they created for homework are AMAZING!!  They are proudly hanging in the hallway outside our classroom for everyone to see, read, and enjoy! 

We also reviewed some of the “easy” addition math facts this week – like +0 and +1 and students were introduced to a fun, new game called Beat the Calculator.  Ask your child about it!  (Challenge him/her to play at home! It's fun!) 

Later in the week, we talked about doubles facts (example:  2 + 2, 5 + 5,etc.) and we read a great story, titled Two of Everything by Lily Toy Hung, about a magic pot that doubles everything!!  Students illustrated /colored their own ideas about what they might put into the pot - they are so creative!

SCIENCE

In science this week, students were challenged to describe and compare the properties of two different objects.  They used the knowledge gained from their experiences with the buttons to create a Venn Diagram listing at least 2-3 similarities and differences - referencing the objects' size, shape, color, material, and texture.  Here are a few pictures:

Students were also introduced to the three major states (types) of matter this week – solids, liquids, and gases.  On Tuesday, we worked together to come up with a web identifying different solids, liquids, and gases in our world.  This knowledge was then reinforced in Computer Lab with a BrainPopJr video!

Then, on Thursday, students’ knowledge was put to the test with the Mystery Matter Challenge!   With a partner, students observed 10 different containers filled with “mystery matter.”   They could not see inside the container, but they could use their other senses to try and figure out whether the matter inside was a solid, liquid, or gas. Then, the truth was revealed!  Was your child tricked? 

MYSTERY READER
This week, our Mystery Reader was Mr. Ullman - Maddie's dad!! He read a nonfiction story about animals - titled Rare Animals.  Students learned many interesting facts about whooping cranes, elephants, seals, and polar bears!  Thank you so much for visiting, Mr. Ullman!