Brrrrr!
It is COLD outside! Please make sure that your child is dressed to play outside for recess - with warm coats and hats/gloves!! Children that aren't properly dressed will not be allowed to go out!! (And we all know that the kids need to get outside to play!)
Wee Deliver
The Wee Deliver program has been a HUGE success in the classroom. I have never seen students so excited to WRITE! And you should see their faces when they get mail! Please encourage your child to keep writing those letters! Don’t forget that you can write letters to them too! (Just drop them in the big blue mailbox in front of the cafeteria!) J
Our Week in Review:
This week, students read the story Farfallina and Marcel, from our reading anthology. This story is a fantasy and is written and illustrated by Holly Keller. In keeping with our theme for the week, How Animals Grow, this story tells about a caterpillar (Farfallina) and gosling (Marcel) that become good friends. After spending some time apart, the two friends can’t find each other because they have both undergone such incredible physical changes! Ask your child to tell you how they each changed – and how the story ends!
We have been working very hard on making inferences this week! An inference is when the reader “figures something out," based on information read in a story, as well as previous knowledge of a subject. Making inferences can be tricky because the information is not directly stated in the text – you must INFER the author’s meaning!
It is not only important that we make reasonable inferences, but also to identify the clues from the text that helped us arrive at our conclusions. In order to help us strengthen this skill, students played an Inferencing Game this week. A card from the game is copied here. How would you do?
SPELLING
This week, we worked on the different ways to spell long i (iyyyyyyyyy) and unfortunately for the kids, there are quite a few! Take a look!
Ways to spell the long i sound:
i | y | ie | igh | i_e (review) |
mind | try | pie | sight | chime |
child | cycle | tie | high | kite |
Be on the look out for words with these spelling patterns! J
GRAMMAR
We have been talking all about plural nouns for the last few weeks. Students now know that most nouns can be made plural by adding "S". For words that end with s, ss, sh, ch, x, and z, we add "ES" to make them plural. When a singular noun ends with Y, students know to look at the letter before the Y. If it is a vowel, we just add "S" and if it is a consonant we change-the-Y-to-an-I-and-then-add-ES! Phew! That's a lot to remember!!This week, students learned that there are some nouns that do not follow ANY of those rules! These words are called "Irregular Nouns." Irregular nouns change completely when they are plural. Here are some examples:
tooth - teeth
mouse - mice
ox - oxen
cactus - cacti
child - children
man - men
There are many more, too!! Encourage your child to identify these words - and help him/her spell them correctly!
WRITING
With cell phones and email, letter-writing is somewhat of a lost art and it is important that we keep it alive! I know that I STILL get excited to receive mail – and it is even more exciting for the children because it doesn’t happen that often! Please encourage your child to write letters – to friends, cousins, grandparents, and more! The more they practice, the more they will internalize the letter format (date, greeting with a comma, body, closing with a comma, and name). They will have great opportunities in the near future (thank-you notes/letters)!
MATH
Ballpark estimates were introduced this week. We use estimates everyday to help us figure out “about” how much we owe (Do I have enough money?), “about” what time it is (Am I going to be late?), and “about” how cold it is (Do I need to wear a coat?).
When adding, ballpark estimates can help us check our answers. For example, if our exact answer is completely different (or “far away”) from our ballpark estimate, then we know we made a mistake somewhere. Many students learned how to make ballpark estimates last year, but for those who are still struggling,students should first ROUND each number and then add the numbers together.
Example:
23 + 47 = ____ ------> 23 is closest to 20 and 47 is closest to 50
so...
20 + 50 - 70
Next week, we will be adding double-digit numbers with regrouping (carrying) and students will learn a very specific, yet effective, algorithm to solve these problems. Carrying is no longer the method used to solve these problems – we now use the Partial Sums method, which is much more developmentally appropriate. Detailed information about this algorithm will go home next week and I STRONGLY encourage you to read it carefully so that you can be a valuable resource to your child at home. (They WILL have questions!)
SOCIAL STUDIES
This week, students were introduced to the 4 intermediate directions – northeast, southeast, northwest, and southwest. They should now understand that these intermediate directions are found halfway between two cardinal directions - and they provide us with more accurate directions and information. On Wednesday and Thursday, students included all 8 of these directions in their creation of advanced compass roses – which are proudly displayed in the hallway!
Students learned about symbols and map keys at the end of the week. Symbols, as students know, are pictures that stand for something else. A key is a special box on a map that "unlocks" and explains the symbols to the map-reader. More work with symbols and keys will be done next week!
MYSTERY READER
This week's Mystery Reader was Mrs. Parsons - Kyra's mom! Mrs. Parsons read two wonderful stories. The first story was titled The Quiltmaker's Journey by Jeff Brumbeau and Gail de Marcken. The second story was a true story written by Jacqueline Briggs Martin and Mary Azarian titled, Snowflake Bentley. Mrs. Parsons ended her visit by giving students their own snowflakes to take home! Thank you for visiting, Mrs. Parsons!
No comments:
Post a Comment