We’ve had a lovely week! The cold snowy days made for fun indoor recess in the classroom. We played with legos, did puzzles, exercised our hearts out, and played a WHOLE lot of four corners. We also finished up a mini Native American unit. Students learned about how Native Americans lived in four different regions in the U.S. and did art projects to go with each region. It was a whole lot of fun.
Next week I’m gearing up to do my mid-year benchmark reading, writing, and math assessments. If I see any glaring problems with your child’s growth, I will let you know right away. All the kids have worked so hard this year, and I’m confident they will do well. I am really so very proud to see how much they have changed and grown in both their academics and confidence in themselves. It’s really an awesome joy to see!
Reminders
HOMEWORK FOLDER: Please continue doing the Homework reading folder with your child. I will switch out for new sight words after the Holiday break. Thanks for being so diligent with these! Kids are doing great with taking ownership of their learning and being responsible with what they need to get done!
AR BOOK READING PIZZA PARTY: Kids are fast meeting their reading goals and earning a pizza lunch party we’re having in the classroom on December 23. Please continue reading with your child and asking them questions about what they read so they can reach their goal of eating in my classroom. We’re all so close!!
BOOK ORDERS: December book orders went home today. They will be due back tomorrow Friday December 9. I will not accept any orders later than that. I have to order by that date, so books come before Winter break. If you’d like to order some books for your child as a Christmas gift, write a note with the book order, and I will send the books home with your kid in a secure package, so they don’t see them when they come. If you misplaced the book order and would like a new one, please let me know.
MOVIE AND PAJAMA DAY: We have finished reading The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, I was planning on showing the kids that movie and having a pajama day on Friday December 23. The movie is rated PG. So, I want to make sure parents are ok with it. I intend to skip over any scenes that may be too scary for a child. Please let me know if this is a problem for your family and I will gladly pick a different movie.
HOLIDAY PARTY: I am working on planning a little holiday celebration the Thursday before Winter break (December 22). The students have worked incredibly hard all year and I want to celebrate their hard work. If there are any parents who would like to help plan activities or such, please shoot me an e-mail ([email protected]) to let me know you’re interested. I’ll send home a sheet next week letting parents know what’s going on and ways you can help. The party will go from 1:30-2:30! Parents are welcome to join us for the festivities. I am not allowing younger siblings to come to the party. It creates a whole lot of chaos a commotion. My classroom is already pretty full with little bodies, so PLEASE no younger siblings.
Here’s What We’re Learning Next Week
Reading
- Comprehension
- Genre: Expository
- Strategy: Monitor Comprehension: Reread
- Skill: Draw Conclusions
- High-Frequency Words
- After, done, find, new, old, work
- Oral Vocabulary
- Create, hobby, inspire, resourceful, structure
- Fluency
- Expression: Intonation
- Phonemic Awareness
- Phoneme Identity (What’s the first sound in cat? C)
- Phoneme Addition (Add a ‘t’ sound to the beginning of ‘an’)
- Phoneme substitution (change the ‘m’ sound to ‘t’ in man)
- Phoneme blending/segmentation (put the sounds ‘t’ ‘a’ ‘n’ together, break the word tan apart).
- Phonics
- Long o: o_e; Long u: u_e;
Writing
- Grammar:
- Is and Are
- Sentence punctuation
- Expository- We are working on writing 5 sentences paragraphs that start with introducing a topic, writing 3 facts about our topic and closing it out with an opinion about our topic. Students are learning to use webs to plan out their ideas.
- Spelling words:
- Phonics words: hope, nose, note, rope, cute, cube
- Challenge words: old, new, done, find
- Extra Challenge Vocabulary: Create, hobby, inspire, resourceful, structure
- Students will use doubles facts to write addition sentences.
- Students will use doubles plus one strategy to add (6 +7 is the same as 6 + 6+ 1)
- Students will use doubles plus two strategies to add (6 +8 is the same as 6 +6 +2)
- IXL Skills next week: B.1, B.2, B.22