I can't believe it's the last day of February! Where did the whole month go? I hope everyone had a great vacation! Mine was nice…relaxful but by the time it's ending I'm ready to get back to business!
**Important things to remember!
*We will be attending the book fair on Monday. If you would like your child to purchase books during this time, please send in money in a ziploc bag so they can put any change in there.
*Conference schedule went up early this week and many of you have signed up. If you haven't, or haven't received the sign up, check your spam. If you need the link, let me know and I can tell you the times that are still available. This is for you and your child to attend. Your children have lots to share with you and it's a great time to have a good conversation about how the year has been going.
*Field trip information went one yesterday. Please read it carefully and keep the first copy home with you to keep the important information. The total for both trips is $46. Please sign the 2 forms, check off if you'd like your name to be in the hat for chaperones, check with Francie to be sure you have a current CORI, and send the money in an envelop or ziploc with their name on it. I don't have change and can not accept a check, so please send in exact change. More info will come later about specifics. Thanks!
*March 13th is an early release day for conferences.
*March 18th, Tuesday, is a FULL DAY of school with a WEDNESDAY schedule.
*March 19th, Wednesday, is an EARLY RELEASE day with a TUESDAY schedule. This is due to the MCAS 4th grade long composition test.
What's happening in room 235?
In literacy, we've been finishing up pourquois by pulling all the ideas together into a story map and we began to write our own group pourquois. It's been very interesting to see their ideas about how things come to the world (such as How spiders got 8 legs? Why dinosaurs breath fire?). We'll be starting to read trickster tales next week. The students are very excited about it! In Fundations, we finished out our unit on -r controlled syllable words. We have started working with ae and ai double vowel syllables. We'll continue this next week. In writing workshop, we've been working with our opinion letters and have begun publishing their letters about the books they've been reading. I am excited to share them with you at conferences!
In math, we finished up unit 6, began working on a subtraction assessment which will help guide us with plus time groups, and started working with compliments of 10 to help us learn how to work with numbers much easier. We also will work with using addition and subtraction strategies for getting from starting to target numbers.
In social studies, we finished out our Mexico unit by writing an alphabet book on Mexico. Once it's all put together, I'll post it for all to see!
In science, we've been discussing what rolls and slides. This will be the beginning of our ramps lessons. We also now have a lunar moth and we will be observing the changes over the next few weeks. Hopefully it will make it this year! It doesn't eat or drink so we just watch but last year it didn't make it! :(
***Ask your child what rolls and what slides. What stops things from rolling or sliding and what helps get them started? Ask your child what their letter was for the Mexico book and which picture they drew! What is the difference between a pourquoi and a fable? What makes the story a pourquoi?
Any questions, please let me know!
Have a great weekend!
Friday, February 28, 2014
Friday, February 14, 2014
Weekly Update 2/14/14
It's vacation! Are you as excited and me and the kids? I hope so!
*We celebrated 100 days of school on Wednesday…we made 100 shaped eye glasses, counted to 100, wrote 100 things, timed ourselves to see what we could do in 100 seconds, read and illustrated a 100 day poem, and shared our bags with 100 items. It was so interesting to see what the class came up with! They loved guessing each other's bags!
*We also celebrated friendship week and Valentine's day. I hope you liked our canvas art work! Thanks to the parents that helped and those that donated items to help us complete this project. We read books about friendship and Valentine's Day as well as thought about people in our lives who we love and care about.
*Conferences will be the 2nd week of March. The first day back from vacation, the 24th, I will post the Sign Up genius for conferences. They will be held the 11, 12, and 13th.
This has been a busy week…we've been working on finishing up our Mexico alphabet book, we completed writing our own fables, and we worked on writing our letters to someone about our opinion about books. We also have been practicing addition and subtraction strategies, estimating to the closest number, practiced some challenge work, and thought about ways to get to 100. In literacy, we've been reviewing the r-controlled syllable, have continued working on pourquois (focusing on the characters and the problem), and read Time For Kids on the presidents.
I hope everyone has a wonderful vacation!
**Our fables are below…the students worked in groups to decide what the lesson would be, who the characters were, where the setting was, what the problem might be, and how it ended. The groups wrote a rough draft, then typed their fables, and finally, added their illustrations.
*We celebrated 100 days of school on Wednesday…we made 100 shaped eye glasses, counted to 100, wrote 100 things, timed ourselves to see what we could do in 100 seconds, read and illustrated a 100 day poem, and shared our bags with 100 items. It was so interesting to see what the class came up with! They loved guessing each other's bags!
*We also celebrated friendship week and Valentine's day. I hope you liked our canvas art work! Thanks to the parents that helped and those that donated items to help us complete this project. We read books about friendship and Valentine's Day as well as thought about people in our lives who we love and care about.
*Conferences will be the 2nd week of March. The first day back from vacation, the 24th, I will post the Sign Up genius for conferences. They will be held the 11, 12, and 13th.
This has been a busy week…we've been working on finishing up our Mexico alphabet book, we completed writing our own fables, and we worked on writing our letters to someone about our opinion about books. We also have been practicing addition and subtraction strategies, estimating to the closest number, practiced some challenge work, and thought about ways to get to 100. In literacy, we've been reviewing the r-controlled syllable, have continued working on pourquois (focusing on the characters and the problem), and read Time For Kids on the presidents.
I hope everyone has a wonderful vacation!
**Our fables are below…the students worked in groups to decide what the lesson would be, who the characters were, where the setting was, what the problem might be, and how it ended. The groups wrote a rough draft, then typed their fables, and finally, added their illustrations.
Friday, February 7, 2014
Weekly update 2/7/14
I hope everyone has had a nice week! We have 1 more week until vacation!
A few important things:
**Right now the 100th day of school is next Wednesday. Next week, I will send home a sheet to write about 100 things you've collected. Start thinking about or start collecting, 100 small items. Examples are cheerios, legos, doll shoes, crayons, pennies, etc. If you collect this weekend, you won't have to be looking for them next week and you'll only have to complete the form.
**Going home today is the valentines information. On Friday, February 14th, we'll be having a Valentine's/Friendship day. We will count candy hearts, write about people we care about, do a craft activity, and pass out valentines. If you choose to pass out valentines, the information is going home today along with a class list. Please keep in mind that we can not pass out candy to eat. If candy is brought in to pass out, it will all have to go home.
**You may have had a chance to use Tumblebooks when you were here for literacy morning. You can also use it home too! Go to tumblebooks.com using the username mspaulding and the password books.
What's happening in room 235?
In literacy, we continue to work on writing our opinion letters. Some of us are writing about characters…others about our favorite parts…and some of us are writing about parts that are funny. We are using a checklist to help keep us on track and though we just started this recently, we will continue to work on it for another month or two and the end products will be amazing! Thank you to those that came to literacy morning…I'm glad you had a chance to see some of their writing! In reading workshop, we are working on pourquois. Pourquois teach us why the legends tell us something happened. For example, ask your child why chipmunks have stripes. We also continue to work on writing our own fables before we type them and add illustrations.
In math, we are still working on addition strategies such as the open number line, ball park estimates, and partial sums. We will be looking at length and data next week.
In social studies, we have finished our Mexico unit and have been reading Time For Kids about thunderstorms and are working on researching, typing, and illustrating an alphabet book about Mexico.
After vacation, we will go back to science and work with ramps. We will investigate how ramps work, what makes cars go faster or slower down the ramps, and then make our own ramps. I'm looking forward to it…students usually love this unit!
Have a great weekend!
Mrs. DeKing
A few important things:
**Right now the 100th day of school is next Wednesday. Next week, I will send home a sheet to write about 100 things you've collected. Start thinking about or start collecting, 100 small items. Examples are cheerios, legos, doll shoes, crayons, pennies, etc. If you collect this weekend, you won't have to be looking for them next week and you'll only have to complete the form.
**Going home today is the valentines information. On Friday, February 14th, we'll be having a Valentine's/Friendship day. We will count candy hearts, write about people we care about, do a craft activity, and pass out valentines. If you choose to pass out valentines, the information is going home today along with a class list. Please keep in mind that we can not pass out candy to eat. If candy is brought in to pass out, it will all have to go home.
**You may have had a chance to use Tumblebooks when you were here for literacy morning. You can also use it home too! Go to tumblebooks.com using the username mspaulding and the password books.
What's happening in room 235?
In literacy, we continue to work on writing our opinion letters. Some of us are writing about characters…others about our favorite parts…and some of us are writing about parts that are funny. We are using a checklist to help keep us on track and though we just started this recently, we will continue to work on it for another month or two and the end products will be amazing! Thank you to those that came to literacy morning…I'm glad you had a chance to see some of their writing! In reading workshop, we are working on pourquois. Pourquois teach us why the legends tell us something happened. For example, ask your child why chipmunks have stripes. We also continue to work on writing our own fables before we type them and add illustrations.
In math, we are still working on addition strategies such as the open number line, ball park estimates, and partial sums. We will be looking at length and data next week.
In social studies, we have finished our Mexico unit and have been reading Time For Kids about thunderstorms and are working on researching, typing, and illustrating an alphabet book about Mexico.
After vacation, we will go back to science and work with ramps. We will investigate how ramps work, what makes cars go faster or slower down the ramps, and then make our own ramps. I'm looking forward to it…students usually love this unit!
Have a great weekend!
Mrs. DeKing
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