Weekly Update 11/1/13

I can't believe it's November already!  The weather is starting to feel that way.  Please be sure you send your child into school with appropriate clothing for outside recess.
Important dates:
*Thursday, November 7 is an early release day with dismissal at 12:30.
* Monday, November 11, there is no school.
* Wednesday, November 27, is an early release day with dismissal at 12:00.  Please note the different dismissal time.
* Thursday and Friday, November 28 and 29, there is no school for the Thanksgiving break.
* Homework expectations: reading nightly, Xtramath at least 2 times a week, reading response 1x a week on the computer, and Fundations and math worksheet for practice.

What's been happening in room 235?
It's been a busy week getting ready for conferences!
In writing, we've been working hard to edit/revise and rewrite our narrative stories to share with you when we meet.
In literacy, we worked on finding the problem and solution to the story.  In small groups, we've also started working on character traits.  Character traits are words to describe a character's personality or qualities...versus describing what they look like or what they like to do.  We also started an author study on James Marshall.  We will be looking at story elements, characters, and writing opinion pieces.
In math, we've been working with different Kathy Richardson activities to focus on place value.  We've also started working on describing tens and ones within larger numbers.  We also counted the pumpkin seeds we scooped out last week.  We used our estimation skills to determine how many we thought were in there.  Then we counted by 10s as a class and adjusted our thinking as we counted higher and higher!
In social studies, we've focused on U.S. landmarks and landforms.
In science, we observed our moldy pumpkin!  It was very gross and the students LOVED it!
Ask your child to name 1 landmark and 1 landform from the United States.
Ask your child to tell you 1 way to make a narrative story more exciting!
Ask your child what cheer words are and if they remember the cheer for "again" or "sure".
Ask your child how many pumpkin seeds there really were.  You'd be amazed!