Winter weather is here!

It is hard to believe that December is here and flying by! Here are a few notes about our week…
In reading this week we are focusing on the “ar” sound. Our comprehension strategy of the week is understanding author’s purpose. We continue to work on retelling a story beginning, middle, and end. We also continue to work on characters and setting.
In math our focus has been on looking at data. We have been gathering information and displaying data on various graphs. Some of which include: bar graphs, pictographs, and pie graphs.
We have been very busy this week in writing… on a “special“ writing project! Your children can’t wait to share all of the hard work they have been working on in class, but you will have to wait until break! This project walks us through the writing process from creating a web of ideas to a published book!
You were sent a green flyer explaining our plans for social studies until winter break. We have been busy traveling the world learning about holiday traditions in many different countries. Next week we will be writing about a tradition in our own families, so please discuss a family tradition with your child that they might want to write about. (This can be as simple as a food item you make every year.)
There are a few party/classroom needs if you can help out:
• White tissue paper (by Dec 14)- classroom
• Candy canes 20 (by Dec 16)- classroom
• Small inexpensive toys for games- party
• Plastic beads (the size pipe cleaners can fit through)- party

Spelling 11/28-12/2

Spelling- chip, chin, inch, such, catch, match, wish, shop, saw, and were
High Frequency- air, fly, friends, grew, need, play, rain and watch

Happy Thanksgiving!

Believe it or not… we only have two more days until Thanksgiving break! Here are a few highlights from the week and reminders of what’s going on. (An updated calendar went home with your child for December.)

In Storytown we have been working on the “sh” sound in our spelling words. We continue to practice high frequency words and reading comprehension. Our focus this week was setting and story sequence.
In writing we finished our “Oreo Stories”. They are proudly hanging up in our hallway! Each story describes how an oreo tastes, feels, smells, looks, and sounds. This descriptive writing project was delicious! We even were able to have a publishing party to share our work with our friends.
In math we have been working on number sense and ordering numbers from 1-50. We used our 100s board to help us work on order and patterns. The various games and activities have kept us busy. We reviewed partners of “10” strategies and solving story problems. Next week we will be participating in various Thanksgiving themed math activities,
We began studying the first Thanksgiving this week. We started with the voyage of the Mayflower, what life was like for little girls and boys at Plymouth, and wrote our own Native American symbol stories. Next week we will continue our study with activities to help us gain a better understanding of the meaning of Thanksgiving. We will make pumpkin pie, share what we are thankful for, even have our own feast… and so much more! Speaking of a feast, a yellow note is coming home this evening explaining what your child should bring for our feast of Tuesday. If you have any questions please let me know.

A few reminders…
Progress reports went home today. Please contact me with any questions.
Our food drive begins the week following Thanksgiving and will run all week.
Our school district is running a campaign to encourage parents to register to vote. If you need anything to register please contact the office.
Lastly, our playground is positioned in a VERY windy place. Now that the temperatures are dropping… it is even more important that your child come to school with heavy coats, hats, and gloves to keep them warm during recess.
Have a safe and Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Turkey Month!

Spelling words: or, for, form, more, store, sort, long, bring, your, and head
High Frequency words: animals, cold, fish, from, their, under, and very
Welcome November! First of all a big thank you to those of you who were able to help at the class Halloween party… and a huge thank you to our room parents for organizing everything! The kids had a blast and everything went very well!
In Storytown this week we are focusing on main idea and details as well at the “or” sound. These would be great things to work on as you read at home with your child!
We have been busy learning about story problems in math. We have worked with problems with two and three things added together and two things subtracted. When solving them we are focusing on “proving” our thinking through pictures, equations, words, and other strategies. As a class we have been practicing our adding and subtracting strategies of +1, -1, +0, -0, +2, and -2. We continue to work on skip counting to 30 by 2s and 5s to 50. (Skip counting by 2s has been tricky!)
In writing we have focused on descriptive writing. The fall has been our inspiration for these projects. This week we will be using our five senses to “experience” a special snack… and write about it using all of our five of our senses! We continue to work on writing 5 star sentences.
Spiders have been the topic of crawly discussion last week and this week. We will gather more interesting facts this week and make some of our own spider creations this week! We are practicing our graphing skills by asking the question… Are you afraid of spiders?
Reminders:
Book orders are due tomorrow November 8th.
“Saturday Morning” basket items for our PTO basket may still be brought in through Wednesday this week… don’t forget that if you are not able to send in an item they would love a breakfast recipe to include!
This Thursday students will have their health screening in the morning. This will happen at 9:20am.

Spelling 10-24 10-28

Spelling words: us, bus, must, cut, cub, club, with, then, don't, and says
High Frequency: be, does, food, grow, live, and many

Chilly Welcome into Fall!

Thank you so much for taking the time to come visit about your child’s progress in school at conferences. I enjoyed getting to see all of you! It’s hard to believe that we already have a quarter behind us. Here are a few academic notes from the week…
Thank you for continuing to read reading group books with your child at home. They should read this book through three times. During Storytown we have been focusing on words with the “th” sound. We have practiced building words with “th” in our spelling and in the class story Beth’s Job. It was fun that our story this week tied into our study of plants in science! We have also been working on story sequence and reading for details.
In writing we have been studying describing words. To start off we read the book Where the Wild Things Are. Each student designed and created a “wild thing” costume and mask. We then went back through the story to find describing words the author used to describe the wild things. Next week we will be coming up with describing words and action words that describe our own creations… and then it will be time for a wild rumpus! Studying the season of fall has also been inspiring our creative writing.
We wrapped up our study of plants this week. We have studied the parts of seeds, parts of plants, and the life cycle of plants. Next week we will begin talking about bats and spiders. We will talk about facts and habitats for each creature!
This week we have focused out studies on fact families and the commutative property. (5+3=3+5) We even created our own fact family houses to show what we have learned! I also wanted to clarify a few MAPs terms you may see on our daily practice sheets when they come home. When we work on word problems you will see PT+, TA-, and C- . PT+ means to put together add two or more things in a story problem. TA- means to take apart subtract alike things from a story problem. C- means to compare two different things… for example when you hear “how many more”, you would need to subtract to find the answer. I hope this helps clear things up a little!
Next week is Red Ribbon Week! A pink flyer came home today with all of the festivities for this fun week. If you have any questions please let me know!
Our room parent Mrs. Banfield is still looking for help with help both in items, snacks, and people who can come help for our fall party! If you can help please contact her at: mab1224@hotmail.com or (913) 708-4486. (Mary Banfield)

Spelling October 17-21

Spelling Words: then, them, this, that, path, with, ten, get, said, was