Hi Parents,
We've had a great week, despite the fact that I was "voiceless" for two of the days! The kids were so funny. They said, "You sound weird, Mrs. Wadsworth!" Check out below to find out what we've been doing this week in our classroom. Also, take a minute to read the Classroom News below for important information about our class and families.
Phonics/Grammar: This week, we learned all about the L-blends. We played several games to help us remember when to use these blends. We also learned about nouns and verbs and their jobs in sentences. We played an interactive smartboard activity to help us recognize these words in sentences. We also completed a noun/verb sort on the smartboard.
Reading: We are more than halfway through our chapter book, Because of Winn-Dixie. We've compared the characters in this book and the kids have really impressed me with their listening skills! We also learned a new sight word game called spelling squares. This game is helping us to improve our sight word recognition and increase our reading vocabulary.
Writing: We really focused on the important components of a personal narrative this week. We wrote a "recipe" to help us remember the steps to a good narrative. We learned what transition words to use at various parts of the paragraph (first, next, after that, in the end) and we learned how to incorporate the setting and characters in the beginning of the story. I modeled a personal narrative writing using an organizer, and then allowed time for the children to write their own story.
Math: We began our unit on place value this week. We learned how to determine the value of the digits in a number. We also learned four ways to represent a number (standard form, word form, using base ten blocks, and expanded form). This was a challenging concept, and one we will continue to explore during the next grading period. Please make sure you sign and return the place value assessment IF your child's test had a purple "sign and return" stamp at the top. We also reviewed touch money and skip counting. Please remember to practice skip counting by 5's with your child if this skill was not mastered in kindergarten. We took our math facts test on Friday. Make sure you check out my "big ups" in the section below for a wonderful compliment!
Social Studies: We completed our unit on Ben Franklin. We also enjoyed hearing about other inventions and their inventors from the children who participated in the extra credit project. We learned about the lightbulb, the iPod, legos, the seatbelt, and the first airplane. You can view these wonderful projects in our hallway during conference week.
Conversation Starters...
*Ask your child to tell you all about Gloria Dump.
*Ask your child to tell you what a noun is. What is a verb?
*Ask your child how many "babies" can be in the "ones house". What does that mama do when there are more than she wants???
*Ask your child to tell you about bifocals. Who invented them and how are they different from regular glasses?
*Ask your child what two interesting foods I brought into school for them to try? Which tasting activity allowed us to spit without getting in trouble?
Classroom News and Announcements...
Thank you to Mrs. Tovar, Mr. Petty, and Mrs. Davis for helping in our room with AR this week!
Thank you to Mrs. Mizerek for helping us with our Pumpkin Carving Contest! The kids helped scoop and separate the seeds from the pulp, then I took home the seeds and roasted them. We tried them on Friday. There are a lot of pumpkin seed lovers in our room...that is so unusual!
Thank you to Mrs. Mizerek for sorting my paperwork for me this week! She saved me so much time!
Congratulations to Sofia Tovar, Andrew Gohlke, Arturo Cordova, Asa Garcia, Skye Taylor, and Eric Kho for taking on the extra credit challenge this week! These six children earned a very special reward. To the parents of these six students, be on the lookout Monday for a special note in the blue folder. Our reward will be on Friday, October 15th from 2:30-3:30.
I have to give a BIG UPS to our class for their hard work on the math facts this week! All the children who took the +5 test passed and many children who retook the +4 test greatly improved their scores from last week and passed. Remember, one of our school improvement goals is computation! Memorization of math facts is a key component of computation. If your child is still using his/her fingers, then they are not memorizing the facts. If you are unsure how to help your child in this area, please let me know and I can give you some really useful tips to help.
Congratulations to Asia Davis for being chosen as this week's teacher's helper. Asia did an outstanding job exhibiting our rules to live by.
Thank you to those who sent in old but clean socks for us to use erasers on our white boards. We could use some more, so check those drawers for socks without a partner and we'll gladly take them!
Make sure you marked on your calendar our conference time. I will not send any additional reminders home. I am looking forward to meeting with you.
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