There is no school for students on Monday, October 10th in honor of Columbus Day.We had our first parent Mystery Reader last week. It was a lot of fun.
Last week we also had our first Game Day of the year. It was nice to have some time to play games in small groups with our parent volunteers. There will be 3 more game days during the rest of the school year.
The cafeteria snack program has begun. There are two drink choices: water or capri sun. The snack choices are: pretzels, crackers, string cheese or apples. Please let your child your family's "policy" on purchasing snacks (ex: just once a week or 1 drink & 1 snack food item or no drinks & just a snack, etc.). The cost of whichever items your child selects will be deducted from his/her lunch account. These snacks are dropped off to our classroom for afternoon snack time. This is a completely optional program and you may choose to continue sending in snack from home...it's up to you!
Writing Workshop: We have spent the last 3 weeks writing our small moment stories. This week is our "Publishing" week which means we will be selecting 1 of our favorite stories to take through the writing process of revising (Writers can add on to their story draft to make it even better), editing (Writers fix up their stories to make it easier for readers to read and enjoy it.) and then publishing (Writers make a cover and illustrate their stories.). During this publishing process I use the term 'sloppy copy' to mean our initial draft and 'fancy schmancy' to mean the final product.
Reading Workshop: We will start meeting with our reading groups this week! We have really increased our independent reading stamina and are ready to take on some group work. Our whole class mini-lessons will be related to strategies strong readers use. This week we will review/learn how strong readers use the following strategies: Get your Mouth Ready, Backtrack adn Reread, Skip it and Read On, and Think About What Makes Sense.
Second Steps: We are in the 4th week of the Second Steps program. The topics so far have been: Listening to Learn, Focusing Attention, and Following Directions. This week we will learn about "Self-Talk for Learning" which is the concept of talking to yourself as a way of focusing attention.
Math: This week's topics are: Exploring Addition Patterns, Reviewing Subtraction as "take away", Enriching Subtraction Language, and Writing Subtraction Number Stories.
Homework
Tuesday 10/11
1. Read for at least 15 minutes
2. Fall Word Work
Wednesday 10/12
1. Read for at least 15 minutes
2. Math Problem Solving: Columbus' Ships
Thursday 10/13
1. Read for at least 15 mintues
2. Review for tomorrow's spelling test
Have a great week!
