Week ending 2/15

Can you believe we've made it to break?  It's been a busy two weeks in our room!  We've celebrated the 100th day of school, Valentine's day, met with buddies, and much more!

Important information:

• Conferences will be scheduled the last two weeks of March.  Be on the lookout after break for a conference sign up.  
• Be sure to send in extra clothes, snow pants, boots, etc for snowy days for outdoor recess.  

3, 2, 1 things we've done in room 250? 

• We've been working on graphing and bar graphs in math.  3 things we've looked at as a class was  who was wearing long sleeves, sweatshirts, or sweaters, who was wearing boots versus no boots, and who had short sleeves versus long sleeves.  You'd be amazed at what we've learned about each other!  We also did some sorting with Yekttis! *Ask your child about Yekktis and possible ways to sort them.

•  2 writing projects we started working on were reading through books and marking important sections with post-it notes on various topics regarding Mexico and then beginning the note taking process using those books. 
• 1 read aloud we began this week is Ivy and Bean.  It's a funny book about Ivy and Bean who develop the most unlikely friendship.  We'll use this book to delve deeper into character traits and comparing the text characters' friendships to our our own friendships.  

Week ending 2/8/19

Today is our 100th day of school!  Everyone is super excited!  It's wonderful to reflect on where we've come these last 100 days and to think about the 80 left ahead for this school year!  We really enjoyed guessing what each student brought in for their 100 items!

Important information:

• Please check your child's folder for Valentine's day information and field trip information.  Thanks!
• If you have any cleaning wipes or paper towels you'd like to donate to the class, we'll happily take them!
• If you haven't signed up to visit a morning meeting before, please do.  You can check out the sign up here: Morning Meeting Sign Up
• Morning meeting is a great time to see how we start our day.  We do a greeting to allow everyone to be welcomed in the morning, a share to hear about what's happening in our lives or over the upcoming weekend, an activity or game for some movement, cooperative work, and fun, and we read the morning message together.  

• This coming week we are in school as usual.  Coming home today is a list of names of each student in our class.  This list is to help you if your child is planning on bringing valentines on Thursday.  You certainly do not have to bring in valentines but if you choose to, please be sure there is one for everyone in the class.  Please check the sheet for valentine ideas and things not to bring in. 

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

3 team building activities we worked on this morning were Don't Wake the Dragon, Finger Tip Hula Hoop, and Human Knot.  Ask your child which activity they liked the best and why.  We're focusing a lot on more group work, team building, and perspective taking activities.  Our whole school work around empathy, cooperation, and assertion falls in these activities. Our class is very focused on competition, who is right, and fairness.  Although competition definitely has a place in our world, it has taken a different turn in our room and we are working as a whole class to be more respectful, focus on ourselves, be a good friend, encourage and support those who may have lost the game or weren't chosen for something, and share our successes graciously.
*Check out the bottom for a few pics of activities.

2 read aloud books we read and discussed during read workshop were Amelia and Eleanor Go for a Ride and Something About Hensley's.  This literacy unit is focused a lot on understanding a character's actions and their feelings as well as understanding  character's point of view.   Ask your child which book they read during their independent reading time when they focused on their character's actions and feelings.  

1 new math unit we started is Pockets, Teeth, and Guess My Rule.  I'm really excited about this new Investigations unit.  There is a lot on data collection, understanding, interpreting, and sharing of data, as well as taking a great deal of data on their own or with a partner.