PSA

It is pretty cool in some of the rooms at school. If your child has an old sweatshirt or sweater that he/she can leave in the cubby it might be a good idea. That way he/she will always have something available if the temperature is not comfortable.

The kids will go outside when it is cold. Please make sure your child has a warm coat, gloves, and a hat that covers the ears. If this is a problem for you please let me know. We can find some clothing to keep your child warm.

Week 15

Thanks so much to all of you who helped with the feast preparations. It seemed to be a great success!!! I am so glad that so many of you were able to come. Your children love it when you are at school. I love to see the excitement on their faces.

This week our story is a play called "Did You See Chip?". This is the first time we have hit the play genre. It will be an interesting read. The phonics sound is /ar/ as in the word bark. The new vocabulary words are:

city

house

sometimes

take

there

Questions of the Week:

Monday - Use last week's lined pages to tell me about your vacation.

Tuesday - Tomorrow starts a new month. What month is it? How many days in it? Anything special about this month?

Wednesday - What did we use to make butter last week?

Thursday - Happy Birthday Bingo, 1929. What is your favorite game?

Friday - Tell me 5 things you can do with a toy animal.

In math we are working on math facts. Memorizing the facts through 10 is really important. We will be taking timed tests daily to work on this.

Spelling is progressing. The kids are learning to use the program so that is making things much better. This is another learning curve added to the academics. I like the fact that I am not using volunteer time or aide time to give spelling tests.

We are working hard on building reading reading fluency. You can help by reading and rereading stories at home. Also checking to see if your child is learning the vocabulary words will help. We are doing lots of games and computer work to accomplish mastery. The important part of this is that the state has passed a law that says that if your child is not reading on grade level by third grade, they will be retained. The crunch is on!!!

Have a great week.

The Feast

Making Butter

Veteran's Day

We had a great discussion about soldiers. I love the things the kids wrote about them.

More Thanksgiving Activities

We read the book "If You Sailed on the Mayflower in 1620". The kids learned lots about the Mayflower and the people who sailed on it. I have taken pictures of the books we made after reading the story. I took pictures of the insides of several of the books. The kids were totally taken with the fact that even the children had to drink beer because the water turned sour. They were also pretty undone by the fact that the Pilgrim children didn't get to take toys and had to wear the same thing day after day and didn't put on jammies to sleep.

Cereal Boxes

I don't eat much cereal at my house so could you save me the fronts of your boxes? I have some activities I would like to do with them.

Thanks!

Thanksgiving week

This week we will take a week off from the reading series. We will do some review and vocabulary work. There will also be no question to answer for homework. There will be a reading assignment on Monday night.

Tuesday will be the feast. If you haven't sent your $3/person for those attending, please do so. We will have posse stew, fruit salad, bread, butter, and milk. In the afternoon, we will have pumpkin pudding in the room. You child will be involved in preparing most of the things we are serving. They love this project.

You are welcome to come but please let us know so we can have enough food.

I only have 2 parents who have signed up to help. If you could give us some time with preparation, serving, or clean up on Tuesday, please contact me.

This feast has nothing to do with the school cafeteria. Your lunch account will not be charged for this meal, only for the carton of milk they drink. I think that many of you are confusing it with the meal that the cafeteria served on Wednesday of last week.

Have a great and safe Thanksgiving holiday.

Week 14

We are starting a new reading book this week. It is called "Here and There." The difficulty of the reading level will increase in this book. The stories will become much longer and the vocabulary more difficult.

The first story is "I Am a Butterfly." This isn't a great time to study butterflies. We will do some activities now but will save most of them until Spring when I order butterfly larvae to watch grow and hatch.

The sound the week is /ch/ made by the letters ch and tch. The new vocabulary is:

air

animals

around

fly

live

soon

turns

Questions of the Week

Monday - It is Children's Book Week. What are two of your favorite books?

Tuesday - List 5 words with the ch sound.

Wednesday - List 5 words that rhyme with hatch.

Thursday - It is Child Safety Month. What can you do to stay safe?

Friday - It is Homemade Bread Day. What is your favorite kind of bread?

We are starting Rocket Math this week. We will be taking timed tests on math facts each day. We will also be finishing up the unit on measurement.

Remember the Thanksgiving Feast on Nov. 23. So far I have received very few notes and no money. I will need to shop next weekend so please take care of this. It is $3 per person attending. We will be making our costumes for the feast this week.

Remember that Friday is an Early Release Day for the kids. We will be doing professional development that afternoon. I know that some of you don't send your kids on ER days because it is so short. We do go on with the curriculum so your child is missing valuable instruction on those days.

Have a great week!!!

Week 13

The story this week is a non fiction story called "Fun with Fish." The phonics sound is the digraph /sh/. The kids really enjoy this story. They like the different kinds of fish the story talks about. The vocabulary words are"

away

food

funny

hide

how

many

some

their

Questions of the Week

Monday - Where is your house? (Physical address)

Tuesday - How many door knobs are in your house?

Wednesday - How many windows are in your house?

Thursday - Holiday

Friday - What color is your house?

In math this week we will continue measurement. We are doing the foot, the inch and using the 6-inch ruler. We will continue to work on memorizing math facts. That is ongoing for the whole year.

Spelling has taken on a new dimension. The kids are having to learn to navigate the program and to type carefully. I think this may make them better at keyboarding and maybe spelling also. We are slow starting but speed will pick up with familiarity of the program.

Remember that Thursday there will be no school in observance of Veteran's Day. We will be back on Friday.

Have a great week!

Monster Sandwich Day

Below are the veggie tray and eyeball brownies we had at Monster Sandwich Day. I got so busy making sandwiches that I didn't get any pictures this time. The kids really seemed to enjoy it. They can earn it again by having good classroom behavior. Hope we get to do it again soon.

Halloween Party 2

Halloween Party 1

Week 12

Finally!!! A normal week of school. It seems like forever since we have had one.

This week's story is a realistic fiction piece called "Try Your Best." The phonics sound is /or/ made by the letters or and ore. The vocabulary words are:

be

good

Mr.

need

our

right

saw

time

try

Questions of the Week:

Monday - Tell me 5 things to do with your pumpkin.

Tuesday - List 5 things that make noise.

Wednesday - List 5 things that are quiet.

Thursday - List 5 words that rhyme with more.

Friday - Use the work right in a sentence.

The new material in math will deal with measurement. We will be measuring using nonstandard units, feet, and inches. Please continue to work with money at home.

I have purchased a spelling program that will allow the students to take their spelling tests on the computer. This program tracks their scores and lets me see what words they have missed. You child will be allowed to take one test per day. I will be checking to see if they are using their words correctly when they write. If they consistently misspell a word from their spelling list, I will send them back to that list to start over. The purpose of spelling is to learn words to use correctly, not to have taken the most spelling tests.

I am very concerned about vocabulary and fluency. Many are having trouble learning the words. I have set up lists on the computer that they will be practicing daily. Any extra time you could give to this at home would be helpful.

We will be studying changes over time. I have a bag that has a few things in it to study changes. We will be looking at the moon. I did the first page so you can see what to do. Each night a different child will be allowed to take the bag home to do the recording. Please read the first page which explains the assignment, then record, and then return the bag to school the next day so another child can have a turn.

Friday will be Monster Sandwich Day. I will provide lunch that day. Your child does not need to bring anything. We will have sandwiches, veggies, chips, milk, and a dessert. We eat in the room. It is an activity that my students have enjoyed for years. This will become a behavior reward that can be repeated throughout the year.

The Halloween Party was a huge success. We still have lots of candy. I decided to use some of it as a treat now and then. We had sooooo much. I figure a little treat will taste better every once in a while than having so much on Friday. Thanks to all of you who helped with the party fun.