October 11th Make-up School Day (from the hurricane)
October 12th Teacher Workday- Parent Conferences: Please reserve this day for conferences. Admin has kindly offered to get us a sub on another day so that I can have two full days of parent conferences to fit everyone in. I will let you know the date of this as soon as I find out.
October 18th CSD Kickball Festival 4:00-8:00 PM: This event is for the whole family! Be sure to mark your calendars. 😁
October 19th Fairy Tale Ball 8:30-10:30 AM: You can now start thinking about your child's costume for the ball! They can dress up as any fairy tale character. Please no weapons of any kind (guns, swords, knives, etc.) We will send out a Sign Up Genius as we get closer for parent volunteers. The students have started learning their salsa dance in Spanish class that they will perform at 8:30 AM for us all.
Guided Reading Books:
Thank you for taking such good care of our guided reading books and remembering to send them back on Friday's! I highly suggest that whenever your child reads the book to you, they put it right back in their reading bag when they are done so it doesn't get lost. That way they know exactly where it is when Friday arrives. Below are some tips for guided reading and things that we do during our guided reading group that may help you at home.- Have your child point to each word as they read. This is so beneficial because we are able to see if they are tracking, skipping words, or understanding the concept of saying one word and pointing to one word.
- If your child misses specific sight words in the book repeatedly, write them down and practice them later on when you practice word study. Sight words are essential for them to learn and memorize in this phase of learning to read. You may notice that I write down sight words on a sticky note that I have noticed them struggling with. You can find a fun way to practice these!
- Ask comprehension questions all throughout the book to make sure they are understanding the story.
- Have them retell the story to you once the book is over to see how much they remember.
- Encourage them to read with expression once they have read the book two or three times. This is one of the reasons we have them read the same book for three nights.
- Encourage them to use our Beanie Baby Strategies we learned last night when they come to a word they struggled to decode. If you want a copy of these to print out for home, I will be happy to email them to you!
Word Study:
Please have your child write their spelling words in their "best" handwriting column as some point during the week. I highly encourage your child to practice the words during the week if they do not know them already. Make it fun! There is a list of activities in the "handouts" section of their binder. We notice a strong correlation with the students who know their words when the spell check comes on Friday. They are the students who do their "best" handwriting section and practice the words during the week. They also practice explaining the markings to their parents so they understand the "why" behind the spelling rules. Thanks for helping your child in this way!
Math:
Students were able to rotate through 8 different tubs during our math workshop time. These tubs included games such as Grab Bags, Start With Get To, Get the Goof, and Red Bird Yellow Bird. Get the Goof is one of our newer games where students have to investigate a series of numbers to figure out what is missing. They then rewrite the number series in the correct way. Red Bird Yellow Bird is our newest game where students are working on combinations of 10. They use a ten frame to organize and show their thinking and record their findings on a chart. We are finished with "Cluster 1" of math now and are moving on to "Cluster 2" which is addition and subtraction.
Literacy:
Students did very well with their second week of word study! We also had guided reading groups on Tuesday which is always my favorite. I love reading with the students in small groups and getting to work on their individual needs. We will soon begin doing word sorts on Wednesdays during our Daily 5 time. I introduced our fourth element of Daily 5 this week which is "Work on Writing." The students were thrilled! They are able to go to our writing table or can write at any of the normal tables. They are able to work on our monthly writing topic or any other free choice topic. I will soon introduce the last element of Daily 5 which is "Word Work" and this is where they practice their spelling words in fun ways!
Thematic:
We wrapped up learning about Jack and the Beanstalk this week and are moving onto Rumpelstiltskin next week. Students got to make their own beanstalk by using paper and linking it together. They had to keep linking the paper until the beanstalk was as tall as them. They then counted how many links there were and recorded it on one of the leaves. We also did another measuring activity where they used non-standard measurement tools (unifix cubes, paper clips, pennies, etc) to measure a beanstalk.
Have an awesome weekend!
Love,
Mrs. James
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