Weekly Update 11/21

I hope you are enjoying these beautiful fall temperatures this weekend! I feel like the past two weeks have really flown by. Iím happy to share some of the things your child has been working on…

We took a break from reading groups so that I could meet individually with the students to assess their reading progress. All children are making great gains, and I look forward to talking to more about this during our conferences next week.

As I read individually with students I wanted to have meaningful, engaging activities for the rest of the class to be doing during Daily 5. One of those activities included a writing piece where they were convincing people to eat something other than turkey for Thanksgiving! These came out very cute and will be hung up for you to see during conferences. I also introduced “Read to Someone” as a choice during Daily 5. This allowed the students to read with a buddy during 1 round of Daily 5. We discussed what this might look and sound look, as well as how to pick a good learning partner. Although we are still fine-tuning this activity, “Read to Someone” has turned out to be a popular choice!

                                           

   

The past two weeks in math have been a continuation of Unit 3. In this unit, more fact strategies were developed, with a focus on strategies for solving subtraction facts. We learned a few games and routines to help support the development of fluency with addition and subtraction within 20. We were lucky to have some parents in on Friday to play some of these games with us! The plan is to finish up this unit before the Thanksgiving break so we are ready to start fresh on Unit 4 when we return on November 28th.

Our writing times have been spent continuing Personal Narrative writing. Most kids have two complete, edited stories. We also did a writing prompt where the children were asked to write a Personal Narrative story about a time they had fun. They worked on these stories independently so that we could use them to help assess where the children are in their understanding of all the components and processes involved in this type of writing.

We are in the process of beginning our next science unit, Materials and Their Uses. I hope the children will enjoy this unit as much as they enjoyed the Plant and Animal Survival Unit!

I look forward to speaking with you next week during our parent/teacher conferences. Below are some important upcoming dates…


November 21st: 2-Hour Delay- Parent Teacher Conferences
November 22nd: No School- Parent Teacher Conferences
November 23rd: Race for Education Fundraiser
November 23rd: Early Release (No PM Kindergarten)
November 24th-November 25th: Thanksgiving Break: No School 

Here's what some of the kids said about this week:

"This week I learned about Veteran's Day"

                           -Daniel

"My favorite part of the week was when I found carrots outside in the school garden."

                          -Ava

"My favorite part of the week was shopping at the book fair."

                          -Allison

"This week I learned how to bowl in Wellness."

                          -Griffen