Weekly Update 1/17/14

It's been a busy week in room 235!
A few reminders….
* A homework expectation is that students complete the reading log online 1x a week.  This week, many students did not complete it.  Please help your child organize their time to complete it each week.
* There is no school on Monday, January 20.
* Don't forget to keep practicing those math facts at home!  Whether it's extra math, flash cards, or worksheets…the more practice the better!
* Please let me know if your child is getting picked up by someone other than the usual.  It's very important to know dismissal routines.  Thank you!
* Don't forget to check out "What did we learn this week?" each week!  The students spend time typing and thinking about what they want to share with you so please see their wonderful comments! It's on my website!

What's happening in room 235?
* In literacy, we've finished up mid-year assessments and have started reading groups around Mexico to correlate with our social studies unit.  We are learning about the land, the people, activities, and children's lives.  We have finished up our unit on questions and inferencing and will be moving on to folk tales next week.  In writing workshop, we've been working on writing friendly letters.  We've started writing letters about our favorite character and favorite parts.  It's important for students to identify which part is their favorite and be able to give evidence or reasons why it is.  Simply saying, "This is my favorite part because it's funny." is not enough.  I'm encouraging students to tell which parts are funny to prove the book is funny and to convince me it's funny.  In Fundations, we've worked on trick words and -or or -ar words.  We will continue practicing the -r controlled syllables next week as well.
* In math, we continue to work on "The Art Show" project.  We've completed measuring the papers with cubes and a blue print and have now started working on adding tens and ones and talking about addition strategies for larger numbers.  We will continue working on this next week.
* In social studies, we talked about the Mexican holiday, Day of the Dead, and why it's important to the people of Mexico.  We also talked about what a marketplace looks like on Saturday in Mexico.  We compared it to a flea market or farmer's market around here.
**Ask you child how school went today and if it was any different?  Today we talked about Martin Luther King Jr. and how he wanted all children to be able to play together regardless of skin color or background.  When students arrived, they saw signs saying "No blue eyes children can sit here." or "Only blue eyes children can sit here."  We continued this throughout the day during whole class lessons or lining up for recess.  We read a book about Martin's life and talked about how the people may have felt.  We also talked about how they have felt today.  Some said they felt it was unfair, they felt lonely, sad, mad, and unsure of what to do.  We agreed that's how many people have felt in the past, and maybe still today.  We created an animoto video for you…click on the link below and it will take you there!  We drew our portraits and typed ourselves what our dreams were.  Hope you enjoy it!
We all have a dream.