Here we are on our Habitat Walk. Instead of saying cheese, we said..."Habitat!" Be sure to ask your children about what they saw, and especially about the picture below. Things to ask your child....
What makes a good habitat? ~safety, food, water Why do animals hibernate? ~temperature, limited food and water sources What is it called when animals hibernate because it is too hot? ~estivation We also wrote about different habitats (bulletin board coming soon), sorted animals into their habitats, and learned about hibernation. I hope everyone had a beautiful Thanksgiving break. This week we will be learning about animal communities. We will be reading and writing about their habitats. During math time, we are focusing on speedy recall of our facts to ten. We use many tools to help us such as hundreds charts and number lines (you can search for copies of these by Googling), Ten Frames, and Rekenreks. Your children are becoming automatic in their facts. We will be learning about Frames and Arrows during math too, and we continue to count on by 2's, 5's, and 10's from any number. This is very different than knowing the pattern songs. This is finding a starting number on a hundreds chart and then be able to continue the pattern from that number. It can be quite challenging for your children. During writing time, we are working on writing about an idea with supporting details. This week we will focus on writing nonfiction and learn how to end a writing by stating an opinion. For our writing conventions, we are working on consistently capitalizing the sentence beginning and consistently using an ending punctuation. This is always a funny topic, but I'd like to address classroom holiday gifts. Your children are truly the gift, and teaching them is all the gift that I could want or need. Please do not feel it necessary to purchase teacher gifts. Our class could always use supplies, and if you are inclined to do so, wrapping up a gift to the classroom would be an alternative. Our classroom is always grateful for the following: Soft tissues glue sticks fun foam regular erasers play-doh and play doh tools googly eyes construction paper markers drawing paper tape - Scotch, masking, and colorful duct tape! They love TAPE! 50-100 Piece puzzles Sanitizing wipes The children will not be doing a student gift exchange. We will however, be having a class party. Information on this will come out in early December. If you have not signed up for a conference, please contact me directly. I'd like an opportunity to chat with each family. We can always set up a phone conference if we cannot coordinate a meeting date. Our reading, Social Studies, and science work focused on different types of shelters and their materials. On Thursday, we learned about force. We were then challenged to save a model of a town from being knocked over by a giant boulder. Our task was to reroute and slow down the boulder (ping pong ball) so that Tiny Town would be saved! Check out some photos of this project on The Gallery page.
On Friday, we then became architects and builders. We were challenged to build a house with just 25 pieces of material. This week we will learn about The First Thanksgiving. On Tuesday, we will be involved in a grade level-wide morning of harvest activities. This will include two guest artists, Real Fallu and former art teacher, Judy Keefe. I am still in need of a donation of 100 paper cups and 2 gallons of apple cider. It would be wonderful if these could come in by Monday. That way I will know that we are all set. Please let me know if you are able to help. We will not be having any new spelling words this week. This week we will be learning about contractions. We will be wrapping up some work on community helpers as well. On November 20th, our class, along with our Readiness and First Grade friends, will enjoy a morning filled with seasonal activities. We will have two special artists working with us, former art teacher, Mrs. Keefe, and musician Real Fallu. We are looking for a donation of 100 paper cups and 2 gallons of apple cider.
We are in Unit 2, Week 2 of our Reading Program. I encourage families to use your child's login information to access the materials on this site. All of our books are there along with comprehension and other reading and writing activities! You can access math materials from this as well. Please try it out. This week, we will be going to 8 spelling words for our Spelling Check-Ins. I am enjoying the family conferences. If you have not yet signed up, there are still spots available. Your child has an optional Veterans' Day assignment. Thank you to all our Veterans. Please check out the following pages: Growth MIndset, Sight Words, and Gallery. Today we were designers. Our job was to design a beach umbrella that would not blow over in the wind. We thought about why trees don't blow down in a regular wind, and used what we knew about roots, branches, trunks, and leaves to design and revise our umbrellas. Be sure to ask your child about this!
Next week we will be writing descriptively about November. We will be reading and learning about our community and community helpers. Thanks to everyone for the contributions to our Halloween party. Please see my Sight Words page for our Unit 2 Sight Words! |
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