Weekly Update

Hello Families,

Spring is in the air! It’s been so nice to get rid of the boots and snow pants! Chaperone letters are being sent home today for our zoo field trip. We have 14 chaperones! This means you will have only one or two students to chaperone. It will be a great day at the zoo! J

Math

Math Workshop and our money unit are up and running. The children LOVE math workshop. The shorter whole group lesson and additional small group lesson has helped with boredom and off task behavior. We are still working out a few tweaks, but overall it’s going well. Keep practicing with money at home. Be sure your child can name dimes, nickels, and pennies, and the value of each. They should practice counting dimes, then nickels, then pennies. We will introduce the quarter next week.

Reading Workshop

Great readers make inferences when they read. We make inferences when author’s clues and our schema come together to figure out what the author hasn’t told us. We made inferences about pictures and what’s in Miss Grimes’s school bag! J

Writer’s Workshop

Our research reports are underway. Every child has an animal and at least one book to use for research. We started by researching what our animal looks like. We are doing a class animal as a model and then the students are sent off to work independently on their own animal. This is a guided research project.  Students will do most of the work independently, and will get assistance when I meet with their guided writing group once each week.

 

This Week I Really Learned!

Thank you for writing to your child each week. We really do enjoy hearing all of the letters written each week. I am only able to check some letters each week. If your child’s letter is not adequate you are more than welcome to have him/her re-write it at home and/or write a letter back to your child stating expectations for next time. J

Word Workshop

We learned about y as a vowel this week. We know that y can act as a vowel by itself and it can partner up with another vowel to make a vowel team and say the sound of the other vowel. They know that reading more will help identify the correct spelling by how the word looks when tried a variety of ways. J

Grammar

We reviewed number words as adjectives. Students should be able to read and spell number one through ten.

Other

Tissues

We are out of tissues. If you have an extra box you’d like to send, we’d be very thankful! Thank you for those that have already come in! J Also, thank you to all of the families who sharpen pencils for us! I can’t tell you how much it helps us out every day. J

Water Bottles

Please remember that water bottles may only contain water. If you would like your child to drink something other than water at snack, please send a small amount (no more than 6 ounces) of a beverage that does not contain sugar. I’ve asked the students to bring their water bottles to school empty and fill them with water in the morning. I’m hoping this will eliminate the bathroom “emergencies” we’ve been having lately. Thank you very much for your help with this! J

Report Cards

Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions about your child’s report card. I would be more than happy to answer them. J

Have a wonderful weekend!