October 10-14

Hello Families!

It was another short week, but we managed to get a lot accomplished! Here's a sneak peek...

 

 On Monday morning, Firefighter John from the North Shore Fire Department joined us. We learned all about fire safety, and he left behind special bags with scrapbooks and Sparky dogs for us to take home as part of our Star of the Week program! Information about that was sent home on Friday. If your child's Star Week doesn't work for you, please work with another family to make a switch. Also, please hold onto the paperwork as they won't receive it a second time during their week. Thank you! 

Here's a letter we wrote to Firefighter John!

During Writers' Workshop this week, we used our editing and revising checklists to fix and fancy up one of our small moment books. We then moved into our third bend of the unit and learned about the craft moves of our mentor author George McClements. We learned about ellipses, writing exact actions, and POP OUT words! Ask your writer to tell you why authors use each of these craft moves. Also ask your first grader if s/he gave one of these moves a try in his/her writing this week. 

 

During Readers' Workshop we talked about dropping bad habits and picking up good habits. Ask your reader to tell you about these bad habits: The Mumble, The Freeze, The Tell Me and The Blooper! What are some strategies they can use instead?

 

We also talked about how readers look at all the parts of tricky words AND think about what would make sense in order to solve them. Finally, we talked about how readers double check their reading. We think to ourselves: Does it look right? Does it sound right? Does it make sense?

In Math Workshop this week, we completed our unit 1 assessment. I'll be sharing this with you during conferences. We then spent two days in math rotations which consisted of Dreambox, Ten Frame Top It, Bump +1, Bump +2, and we learned a new game: I "Sea" Ten! 

We revisited our Science Notebooks this week by thinking again about our air investigation last week. We reviewed our vocabulary from this lesson (air, gas, move, blow, and matter). We then worked together to complete sentences with missing vocabulary words, and finally wrote these words in our alphaboxes. Our goal is that our scientists begin using these words correctly while speaking and in their writing. 

During Word Work, we practiced our new "snap" or word wall words with Rainbow Writing and Roll and Write. We also found some of our new snap words in a poem called Little Spider which we added to our poetry notebooks. 

Next week's word wall words: 

in

so

we

it

and

Your child should be able to read and spell these words independently. 

Thanks to everyone who was able to sign up for items for our Halloween celebration on October 28th! Wow - you all are quick! I'll be looking for classroom volunteers as well. We'll need you here right after lunch at 12:50 to help kiddos get into costumes. Ideally, we'll begin our four rotations at 1pm. We'll have about 12 minutes per rotation, then we'll head to art. I think we'll plan to eat our healthy Halloween treats and hear a Halloween story when we come in from the parade - a great way to end our day! Please let me know if you're able to join us on Friday the 28th from 12:50-2:00. We'll need 4-5 volunteers. Thanks much!

Please have a look at Mrs. Witkov's "Literacy Spotlight." This will be a monthly feature! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3u0Xo9qc2fg&feature=youtu.be

Until next time...

Michelle

Mark Your Calendars!

Thursday, October 20: Conferences 4:30-8:00pm

Friday, October 21: Monster Bash

Wednesday, October 26: Early Release

Conferences: 3-6:30pm

Thursday, October 27: Conferences 4:30-8:00pm

Friday, October 28: Halloween Parade & Celebration

Tuesday, November 8th: Picture Retake Day

Tuesday, November 22: Music Concert (Last Names A-M at 10am/Last Names N-Z at 2pm)

Wednesday, November 23: Early Release Day