Saturday, November 28, 2015

November 28, 2015

Important Dates and Reminders:
Tuesday: Library
December 16 - delayed start
December 17 - Winter Performance
December 24 - vacation starts

  •  I enjoyed meeting with families on Parent/Teacher conference day. If you were not able to meet, feel free to let me know when you would like to meet. I look forward to meeting with you. 
  • I hope everyone had a nice vacation and enjoyed time with their families. I had a great time with my extended family in Rutland and my dog Tessa enjoyed a few extra walks during my time off. 



Literacy:
The last couple of weeks, we have worked hard on asking ourselves questions as we read to make sure we understand what is happening in the story. Then, we are able to change our predictions as we go. We have also worked on asking questions to our reading buddy, to better understand their thinking. All the students have enjoyed curling up with books throughout the class room either by themselves or with friends.



We read two books by Jon Klassen: I Want my Hat Back and This is not my Hat. The endings led to some interesting conversations because some of us interpreted the ending differently than others. It was a lively discussion and a great example of why books are meant to be talked about!

Math;
We finished up a math unit  that had the students working with three types of story problems (addition, subtraction, and combination), making friendly numbers (10), skip counting, and deepening their understanding of the equal sign. I am so impressed with how hard the students worked throughout the unit. Our next unit is measurement and we will be starting that on Monday. We continue to work on math facts everyday. We love math!

Classroom fun:
We loved making our Talking Turkeys on Friday before vacation! We read a book that had "talking bubbles" and we decided to make our own turkeys and have them say whatever they wanted to say! The class had fun creating their turkeys and working together.




Sunday, November 8, 2015

November 8, 2015

Important Dates and Reminders:
Tuesday: Library
November 11: No school

November 23: Parent/Teacher Conferences


  • On Friday, I sent home notices about parent/teacher conferences. Please send them back as soon as possible so I can schedule times for us to meet. I can't wait to share all the hard work the students have been doing. If the 23rd doesn't work for you, let me know and we can look at another day/time.

Literacy:
Our focus  in literacy this week has been on making predictions. Readers are always thinking about what will happen in story before, during, and after reading. Being aware of your prediction and then changing your prediction or growing your idea helps you better connect with a story.







We read Swimmy, by Leo Lionni during our book club discussion time. We all shared our initial predictions and then shared our thinking as our ideas grew and changed. We realized how much we love Leo Lionni! The students then did some great artwork inspired by the author/illustrator.




Math:
I had math studio training on Tuesday, which meant Bill Feeley, our math studio teacher, came in to observe on Monday. He was so impressed with how hard the class is working! Good job mathematicians!



This week, we spent time building on the idea of using a friendly number (10) and what to do if you don't have a 10 in your equation. This is some tough work and the students are really pushing their thinking. We are continuing to work on this core math idea next week.