October 13th, 2017

I hope you all enjoyed the long weekend with your families.   Every Monday (or in this case Wednesday!) the children write their "Weekend News" in their journals.  I love hearing them talk and write about all the fun activities they do on the weekends.  It was nice to hear that many of you got away for the weekend or enjoyed some fall fun around Westford.  It's always nice to have an extra day or two to re-charge!

Here is an update on what we've been doing in the classroom over the past two weeks:

We have really gotten into our Science Unit, which is called "Plant and Animal Survival".  We are conducting an experiment in the classroom to see if Marigold plants can survive without either water or sunlight.  The children have made some great predictions, and in a few weeks we will have some evidence to prove what this type of plant actually needs to survive.  Another fun lesson we did in this unit allowed the students to become engineers!  We pretended that bees did not exist, so we had to create a tool that could do a bee's job of moving pollen from one plant to another.  The kids worked in small groups and were given a bunch of materials with which to build their "pollinators".  All groups were able to successfully engineer a tool.  Here are a few examples:

In Reading we have been meeting with our groups on a consistent basis now that all of our Daily 5 routines are in place.  Last week we focused on the skill of Making Connections.  This is a strategy readers use to help comprehend the actions and/or feelings of the characters in the story.  If we can connect something in our own lives to what's happening in the story, then it helps us know how the character might be feeling or reacting so that we can then better understand the story.  This is an important comprehension skill we will practice throughout the year.  Our strategy focus this past week was identifying story elements (characters, setting, problem, solution).

During our math sessions we have been talking about various addition strategies we can use when we don't know the answer to a fact automatically.  Some of the strategies we discussed were Near Doubles, Turn Around Facts, and the Making Ten strategy.  The idea is to use something we know (such as doubles) to help us solve an unknown fact.  The strategies are introduced quickly, so it's common for children to get a little mixed up at this point.  Over time we will go back to each of the strategies and practice them more in depth.  Other lessons we completed in Unit 2 looked at Even and Odd Sums and Name Collection Boxes.

Thank you for helping your child complete the homework assignment this week, which was to bring in a photo of something your child has done recently.  We will be using the photos and the details provided to write our next Personal Narrative story in class.  Spelling Tic Tac Toe, Reading Logs, and Math homework will continue as normal next week. 

I'm looking forward to our first class celebration, our Harvest Party, which will be on October 31st.  We are lucky to have 3 parents helping to organize the celebrations for us this year.  If you have any questions about parties, please contact Parker's mom, Finley's mom, or Brianna's mom (all of the contact info is on the Friendship List sent home at the beginning of the year).

Thanks for all you do and have a wonderful weekend!