Busy First Weeks

Parent Information

• Parent Information Night is tomorrow...9/21/15 @ 6:30.  I hope to see everyone.  I will be sharing with you what our typical day looks like and my classroom expectations.

• Scholastic Book orders will be sent home tomorrow.  If you are interested in ordering books, just click on the tab at the top of this blog.  Please fill all orders online.  Please place orders by the end of the day on September 28th.

• If you haven't sent in an art smock please do so.

Literacy

• Began our first center "Read to Self".  We have spent time defining expectations, practicing the "right way" & "wrong way" and have been working on building our reading stamina.  We are up to 11 minutes!
• Reviewed letter sounds and formations
• Began writer's workshop.  We have begun to write "small moment" stories; stories that are about real events that have happened to writers.  We are learning to plan our story across pages.

Math

• Put parts together to make a whole.
• Solved unknown parts to make a whole.
• Solved for a missing part using subtraction equations.
• Used subtraction to solve comparing stories

Social Studies

• Played a name game to get to know each other.
• Created class rules together.
• Practiced fire drill and safety drill procedures.

Second Day Complete

We spent some time today looking at math tools.  We explored the tools and talked about what math workshop looks and sounds like.

                 

Busy First Day!!!

Fun filled day today!  Lots of routines today, but we did squeeze in a fun playdoh activity and some quiet reading time.

Getting Ready!

I am excited to get started with our new year in Room 11!!!

Here's a peek of the classroom getting set up.

Look for a letter coming home in the next couple of days with important things to know about Room 11.

See you next Wednesday!

Flag Day Show

Here is the video of our Flag Day performance.  Thanks Mrs. Manuel!!!

Animal Inquiry Project

Thank you so much for coming to our author's tea.  Here is our eBook (turned into a video).  Enjoy!

Please take our quick survey and let us know how did.  We would love your feedback!

Animal Survey

Julie

What's Happening in Room 11

I hope that everyone found their child's conference informative. Your children are all unique and special in their own way.  I am so proud of how far they have come in just a short amount of time!

Things to Note:

• How are the math facts going?  After your child has mastered addition facts with sums up to 5, add in all the facts that equal six.  As they master each combination, add in sums equaling 7, 8, 9 and 10.  Remember we are looking for fluency.  This helps with number sense, especially as we work to compose and decompose numbers.

• Booktime books have been sent home.  I have explained to the students that these books have three focus areas:  reading the words, fluent reading, and reading to understand the story.  Don't forget to send the books back on Thursdays so they can get new books.

What's Been Happening in Room 11

Thank you to the room parents for planning a great Halloween party.  Here are just a few snap shots!

We attended a great presentation by Chief Wilson and Cadet Wilson for Veteran's Day.  They taught us all about the five branches of the armed services:  coast guard, army, navy, marines and air force.

We had a great time last Friday working with Mrs. Groden, our librarian, to participate in "The Hour of Code".  This is global participation project which exposes children to coding.  Behind every app and computer program are people writing the language needed to run these programs.  We used the app "Scratch Jr".  The children loved this!  STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) promotes coding.  Children need to plan, collaborate, problem solve, etc. when coding.

Language Arts:

• Learned about the short vowel O "O...octopus...(make short o sound)
• Built words with og, op, ot, & ock
• Learned about the short vowel U "U...umbrella...(make short u sound)
• Build words with ug, ut, uck & un
• Learned about blends.  Blends are when 2 (or 3) consonants work together.  They keep their sounds. Example:  st, sm, sn, sl, sw, tr, cr, cl, pl, pr, bl, br...etc.
• Learned new word wall words (check the tab on the blog to see which ones we should know how to spell)

• Continued working on writer's workshop
• Continued to learn from mentor authors:  how to bold words, use ellipses, show action, etc
• Learned how to revise our stories and edit our stories using editing checklists
• Learned that there are two parts to every sentence.  We have learned that the first part is called a subject.  The subject is a person, place or thing that the sentence is about.

• Worked to improve our understanding of the stories we read by learning how to retell stories.  We use "Brady" to help us remember the parts to tell.
• We have learned that to understand a story we need to get to know the character well.  We have been doing a lot of "close reading" to learn how characters are feeling.  We learned that we can find evidence in both the pictures and words

Math:

• Began working with subtraction problems
• Worked determining if equations are true or false. Ex:  5 = 6 + 2
• Began solving story problems with missing parts
• Looked at how understanding that addition and subtraction equations are made of part, part, whole.  Using this information can help us solve for unknowns.  

• Here are some photos of math workshop

                      

                      

Social Studies:

• Learned about the first thanksgiving.  Did you know that there were two ships at the beginning of the pilgrims' voyage?  Or that the first Thanksgiving lasted three days?
• Learned about Veteran's Day

Science:

• Began our first unit - Solids
• Learned that every solid has properties
• Investigated the properties:  color, shape, roll/stack and sink/float
• Working to complete a graphic organizer using the Popplet app to record the properites as we learn them