January 27, 2011 Update...

Hello Parents,

100th day mania has hit Room 205!  Yes, we have only 80 days of school left!  We celebrated today with some really fun activities.  We did some creative writing, thinking and writing about what we'd be doing at the ripe old age of 100. The pictures are adorable and are hanging in our hallway!  We worked with our book buddies on a 100th day book.  We listened to 100 Hungry Ants and talked about ways to divide 100 things.  We made a special snack with our 10 sets of 10 goodies.  I planned so much, we are going to have to extend our 100th day activities until Monday!  Check out below to find out what else has been going on in our room this week...

Phonics:  We learned all about the long o sound that is followed by the bossy e.  We compared this spelling to the short o spellings we have learned in the past.  We made a word web on index cards to help us prepare for the test (if your child is still getting 1's or 2's, more time needs to be devoted to mastering those words), we completed a long and short o sort on construction paper, we practiced our words on the white boards, and we played sparkle to help us memorize our words.

Writing:  We watched Mrs. W model writing a how to story.  We focused this week on making sure we "hook" the audience with a catchy beginning, ending with a closing and not just our final step, and adding a detail after every step.  The children wrote a "how to" story on the topic of their choice.  I don't always send home writing as I like to keep this writing in their folders here at school.  But this week, I wanted to keep you updated as to how your child is progressing in this area. You will find this graded paragraph in your child's folder today. As I was reading the children's homework stories this week, I had a LONG talk with them, emphasizing how important it is to incorporate what we are learning in class whenever we are writing.  I saw many stories without hooks, closings, or transition words and details. Please help emphasize this at home.

Reading:  We began looking at nonfiction stories and picking out features that set them apart from fiction stories such as table of contents, headings, captions, bold words, glossary, index, and labels.  We read several books, pointing out these features and discussing their purpose. We also learned how to identify and write the main idea from a nonfiction book and then pick out details.  We read the book Eva the Beekeeper and completed an organizer showing our understanding of this book. 

Math:  We learned all about fractions this week. We learned how to identify fractions of a whole and fractions of a set.  We learned what the numerator is and what the denominator is, how to write a fraction and how to say a fraction.  We will continue this concept into next week. 

Science:  This week, we learned what a shadow is and how it is made. We played a guessing game using an overhead projector to make shadows of objects and guess what they were.  We also read all about light and shadows in our science big book.

Class News...

Thank you to all the families who donated food to our snack for the 100th day!  The kids LOVED it and we have enough leftovers to have snack all next week! Yeah!

Thank you for sending in those wipes!  We will need all we can get.

Congratulations to our Teacher's Helper, Evan Cleveland!  Way to go, Evan!

You will find a paper in your child's folder today in regards to my new AR test requirement.  Please help your child get off to a strong start next week by encouraging him/her to read! 

100th day killed my plans of getting the extra credit project shared today!  Please be understanding of our busy day...we'll get all the projects shared by next week and then I will announce the reward!  (The deadline was still 1/27/12!)