Week ending 3/31/17

It's the end of March already!  Can you believe we start April tomorrow?  2 1/2 months of school left!

Important information:

• Friday, April 14th, there is no school and then school vacation starts.  
• If you have any cleaning wipes or paper towels you'd like to donate, we'd love to take them off your hands! 

3, 2, 1 things we've been working on this week...

3 writing activities we worked on as we started our new opinion unit were writing opinion letters to someone about what they thought of a class read aloud, getting energy for their writing by talking with a peer, and choosing a character they have an opinion about by rereading their favorite books.  

*Ask your child which book and character they have chosen to begin writing about.

2 math activities we used to practice our measuring skills were working with a partner to measure our arm spans and working in teams to measure our jumps, both in inches and centimeters.  

* Ask your child to tell you about inches and centimeters.   

1 activity we worked on in literacy was making inferences based on a poem we read together.  

* Ask your child what animal they inferred the poem to be talking about and how they knew that.

Week ending 3/24/17

Hi families! Spring has sprung even though we don't feel it yet!  We are all very excited regarding the Chinese Cultural Field Trip on Monday!

Important Information:

• Please send your child to school with a paper bag lunch and be sure to write your child's name on the bag. 
• Students will be making dumplings, and are offered them at lunch, so if there is an allergy concern, please let me know.  
• Should there be any concerns regarding weather, please plan as though we are still going and send a bag lunch.
• Also, if you have any paper towels or tissues you'd like to donate to the classroom, that would be great!

3, 2, 1 things you should know about our week...

3 activities we worked on to practice inferencing were: "What's in my teacher's bag?" to make inferences about what our Mrs. K.  likes and participates in, listening to the read aloud No! David to infer qualities of David, and read together and discussed the poem "Things" to infer what the girl was doing.  

*Show your child an item that is important to you and ask them what they can infer about you.  (Ex. Showing a Starbucks gift card and your child may infer you not only like to drink coffee, but like to drink coffee at Starbucks. 

2 math skills we've been working on are doubling and dividing  numbers and understanding the relationship between that.  We used the activity called Wubbles to do this.  We also worked in teams to show see who would win a "basket ball game" with dice and addition.  

1 social/emotional piece we're working on with all of our students is getting refocused back on our rules, our understanding of glitch and disaster, thinking of other's tone of voice before responding upset, and thinking about problems in our class and how we can work together to fix them.  I have noticed more students given each other a kid positive postcard and for both the giver and receiver, they both are rewarded in their heart.  

Week ending 3/10/17

We've had a great week and it's been so nice to meet with many of you at conferences.  Next week, Ms. Kariotis takes over again as part of her student teaching.

A few reminders:

• Depending on the weather, please send in clothes accordingly for recess.  
• There will be more information regarding field trips as it gets closer.  If you were chosen out of the box to chaperone, you have been emailed.  Thank you to everyone who has offered!

3, 2, 1, things you should know this week...

3 skills we worked on in math are adding and subtracting double digit and three digit numbers while explaining how we solved them to a partner, learning about estimating, when we might estimate, and how it goes with rounding  numbers, and we practiced comparing numbers through number stories.  

* Ask you child which addition strategy they feel most comfortable with and have them show you an example.  

2 reading skills we've worked on are creating questions or wonderings in our mind regarding fiction and non-fiction stories and comparing Ivy and Bean's friendship to one of our own using evidence from the text.  

1 read aloud book we listened to was Recess at 20 Below.  

* Ask your child what it's like when the students in Alaska go out for recess when it's 20 degrees below zero.

Week ending 3/3/17

Hello families!
It's been a great week back from vacation.  The students have adjusted nicely back to the school routine and we've been working hard in so many areas!

Important information:

• Going home TODAY is field trip paperwork.  Please read over the information, sign BOTH permission forms, check if you would like to be considered for a chaperone, and send the money in, in an envelope in cash only.  We can not accept checks.  If you do not have a current CORI on file, as I've mentioned before, you can not be considered for the field trips.  One is the end of this month and the other is in June.  If your CORI is not complete now, you will not be considered for the field trip this month,  you can check yes on the form and complete the paperwork with Ms. Sheehan for June but if you're chosen and it's not completed, you will not be able to attend.  All the information is coming home today so please look at it and send back on Monday. Thank you for your support in doing this quickly!  
• Conferences begin on Tuesday.  This is a time for you and your child to meet with me to discuss how the year is going so far.  
• Thursday, March 9, is an early release day.  Please let me know if there are any changes to your child's dismissal schedule.  Thanks!

3, 2, 1 things you should know about our week...

3 skills we've been working on throughout our Friendship Unit while reading Ivy & Bean  have been making predictions based on evidence from the text, deciding how Ivy and Bean's friendship has changed over the book so far, and then using our own reading workshop just right books, deciding how the characters have changed in those books.  

*Ask your child what they've learned about the characters Ivy and Bean so far.

2 math skills we've been working on are learning how to add using the strategy of partial sums and how to add three numbers at once using a variety of strategies.  

*Ask your child to solve this problem: 74+56 = ?

1 skilled we activity we have begun in writing workshop is reading and taking notes regarding our topic for our informational Mexico books.  Students have read various Mexico books, used post it notes to mark the parts related to their topic, and have taken notes on the important information.  

*Ask your child which topic they are researching.

Have a great weekend!