Classroom Newsletter Oct. 25, 2013

Language Arts

Writers’ Workshop – The word “to” was introduced.  We now know I, a, the, is, it, in, and to.  The children continue to work on stretching out words to see how many sounds they can hear.  We also did a fun writing activity after reading Go Away Big Green Monster by Ed Emberley.  We created our own monster and then wrote about one thing we wanted people to notice.  We are learning that good writers “paint a picture” in the reader’s mind by using descriptive words.

Guided Reading – We reviewed the sight words listed above.  Word rings will come home on Tuesdays.  Thank you for practicing sight word recognition with your child at home.  Please continue to send these word rings back to school by the following Monday so that I may add new words.  A new book is introduced each week which focuses on the sight words introduced.  The children practice reading to themselves and to a partner.  We talk about how repeated practice improves fluency.  Each week the children choose one book to bring home which they have been practicing at school and would like to share with you.  Paper copies of books brought home may be kept at home, so that children can build a collection of “just right” books both at home and at school.

Fundations – On a daily basis, we drill the letter sounds introduced – t, b, f, m, n, a, c, i, u, o, g.  We practice hearing these sounds at the beginning of words, generating words of our own as well.  We work on recognizing these letters in different fonts, so that we will always recognize them in our reading.  We also review previously learned letters through sorting activities and letter fluency practice sheets.  I find these sheets very helpful and encourage you to review letter recognition and sound recognition at home.  We “sky write” and use mini- whiteboards to practice these letters, learning where the letters start and which letters begin in a similar fashion (ie. a, c, o, g, and d are plane line round letters).  We look at sentence writing, reinforcing where we use capital letters and periods.  Every week the children hear a story about “Echo the Owl”.  We work on our comprehension skills as we retell the beginning, middle, and end of the story, recalling characters, setting, problem, and solution.

Phonemic Awareness – We continued work on sorting words having one, two, or three syllables.  We did a special syllable activity with Halloween words.  

Math 

• We have been working on reading and writing the numerals 1 – 9, using 1-1 correspondence to build and count out the correct number of objects to match the numerals.
• We worked on pairing sets of objects with other sets of the same quantity.
• We worked on the concept of more than, less than, and the same as.  Using counters, we showed a target number and then changed the quantity to be one more, one less, or the same as.
• Calendar Math continues to provide us with rich mathematical   discussions each day.  We are learning to recognize numeral dot patterns on dominoes 0 – 9.   We added to a collection of objects in the Daily Depositor each day which helped us learn about place value and develop an understanding of ones and tens.  Graphing has also been introduced.  We continue to practice days of the week, date on the calendar, and numberline activities.

Science and Health

• We began talking about our five senses.  This week we focused on exploring our sense of sight.  Children mixed colors using food coloring and water as well as playdoh.  They explored prisms, kaleidoscopes, and color paddles.
• We discussed how our senses help us learn.

 Literacy Centers

• We did several Halloween activities.  The children made a Halloween color word book.  They worked on a Halloween syllable graph.  We made a class book of what we would be on Halloween.  The children dictated their sentence to me and then had to cut out each word, scramble their sentence and put it back in the correct order on their paper.  They are learning to use sight words they know as well as beginning sounds to help them as they learn to read.

THANK YOU

Many thanks to Mrs. Nelson, Mrs. Rudynai and Mrs. Smith for joining us on our field trip last week.  We had fun learning about our community!

Halloween Party

Our Halloween parade and party will be on the afternoon of Thursday, October 31st.  On this day, please send in your child’s costume in a bag with his or her name on it.  No weapons of any sort are permitted with your child’s costume.  The Halloween parade will begin at 2:00 in the front of the school.  Following the parade, we will return to the classroom for our party.  Families are welcome to join us in our classroom after the parade.

Class Pictures

I have pictures to begin posting on our classroom blog but am waiting for the complete set of permission slips.  I will send home extra copies next week.