Weekly Update- 11/4

Even though the snow rescheduled our Halloween party, the students still had a great time celebrating on Tuesday!  They ate some Halloween snacks and rotated through 3 stations; Mummy Wrap, Pumpkin Painting, and Bingo.  Thank you so much to the class moms, Mrs. Sears, Mrs. Shellenberger, and Mrs. Sehring for all your work organizing the party.  Also, thank you to all the parents who donated items for the party!

In math, we started (and almost finished!) Topic 4.  In this topic, the students are learning about the basics of multiplication.  These lessons have focused on strategies such as making arrays and repeated addition that students can use to help them understand how multiplication works.  They will also be useful when we start memorizing multiplication facts in Topic 5.  We will be finishing Topic 4 on Monday, reviewing on Tuesday, and taking the test on Wednesday.

In writing, the students completed their personal narratives.  This week was spent revising their narratives for voice and editing for capital letters, spelling, and punctuation.  The students are really improving in their abilities to edit each other's papers and offer suggestions for how to improve their work.  A copy of this assignment will be sent home next week accompanied by a rubric.

For shared reading we read a play called, A Home for Nellie.  We read through the play throughout the week while also focusing on strategies used to self-monitor.  The students practiced asking themselves the question, "Does this make sense?" as they were reading.  Each day the students summarized what they had read so far so that they were not lost when we began reading.  They also learned to use text features (captions, illustrations, headings, diagrams, etc.) to help them make sense of what they were reading.  In guided reading, the students worked in groups on the skills of making predictions, identifying fact vs. opinion, and summarizing.

In grammar we practiced using capital letters correctly.  Since the students are trying to add dialogue into their writing pieces, it is important that they remember the first letter in the quotation is capitalized.  In addition, we did a mini-lesson on the uses of there, their, and they're.  The students are trying to use these words correctly in their written work.

This week in Fundations we continued to work on v-e (vowel consonant e) syllable.  We learned the rules for adding suffixes to these types of words.  If you have a v-e word like brave and want to add a vowel suffix (ed, est, ing), you have to drop the e before adding the suffix (bravest).  However, if you have a v-e word like brave and want to add a consonant suffix (ty, ly, s, ful), you leave the e and add the suffix (bravely).

We have completed our social studies unit on continents, oceans, and map skills.  We will be having a quiz on Monday.  Please remember to bring back the social studies folder and Map Essentials book on Monday. We will be returning to science and focusing on Weather next!

Remember that this Sunday is Daylight Savings.  Don't forget to change your clocks!  Have a great weekend!