Last Day for our Preservice Teachers

We did a winter book project and said goodbye to our preservice teachers from MU as they move on with their education. Good luck to Miss Vanatter and Miss Sears!

Winter Party

Thank you to everyone who helped out with making our Winter Party a success today!!! The kids really enjoyed themselves!  Enjoy the holidays!

Thanksgiving Week

This week, we did a different spin on our reading time! The kids had parts in Thanksgiving themed plays and worked with groups to practice their parts. We talked about how plays help us as readers because we can practice our fluency and expression! Today, we made props for our play and performed for the class. They did an awesome job working together to put on their plays! They will be bringing home their scripts, so they can show you their parts.

FYI December Dates

Updates this Week

Announcements:

Winter Party is coming up sooner than you think! Here is the sign up link for our party!

https://m.signupgenius.com/#!/showSignUp/20f0e4ca9ad23a1fd0-winter1

NO HOMEWORK OR FRIDAY FOLDERS due to short week on the week of Thanksgiving.

Math:

This week, we tested over Unit 3. Unit 3 included fact families, subtraction strategies, and explaining our thinking. After Thanksgiving, we will be starting Unit 4! Keep track of our math topics through homework, family math letters, and Everyday Math online to help your child practice at home.

Reading:

Our reading skill focus this week was using our background knowledge to help us understand a story. We read Ox-cart Man and discussed what we already knew about the cover pictures and specific words and phrases in the story. Your child's work on this will be coming home to review. See if they can apply this skill in their at- home reading too!

Writing:

In writing this week, we did mentor sentence work using Memoirs of a Goldfish. We recognized capitals, punctuation, nouns, verbs, and proper nouns. We even made our own versions of sentences to add detail! Students also added more illustrations to their narratives and we discussed how important pictures in the story are to help the reader understand.

Theme:

Students got to go to Mrs. Knoesel's theme this week and start learning about Earth's surfaces! They conducted soil experiments to see what makes up soil. They mixed water and soil, discussed why it settled in layers, then discussed the effects of flooding on the Earth's surface.

Word Work

Just an FYI, due to this week being a short week and Halloween being tomorrow, we will not have word work homework or a spelling test this week, as I don't think they will have adequate time to study the new pattern. Homework will be a math page and reading. Enjoy the night and don't eat too much candy! :)

Fall Party

Here are some pictures from our fall party on Friday! The kids had so much fun! Thank you to all the parents who helped make this happen and attended to celebrate with us!

Campfire Day!

The kids earned so many class stars that they voted on having a Campfire Day and camping out to do their reading and writing. Our classroom looked so cool and we even got to sit around the "fire", eat S'mores, and share. What a fun day!

Reminders!!!

Tomorrow is CAMPFIRE Day! Remember to bring a blanket, pillow, and/or flashlight to camp out in the classroom!

Also, there are only 2 more days to donate to the Food Drive! Our class has 182 cans! Remember, $1 counts as 4 CANS! Please donate anything you can by Friday for a good cause and for our class to try to get the most cans!

Great American Shakeout!!!

Check out ABC News tonight at 5:00-6:00 to see our class featured doing an earthquake drill! DROP, COVER, and HOLD ON. The kids were excited to show off their safety knowledge and they were a great example!

REMINDERS:

 Please return the blue conference form that was sent home with your child last Friday. These forms are important for scheduling your conference at a time convenient for your family!

Go to this link to help out with our fall party on October 27^th! Even if you can’t attend, sending food and providing activities is also helpful!

http://www.signupgenius.com/go/20f0e4ca9ad23a1fd0-room

In Reading this week….
Your reader is working on figuring out the meaning of unfamiliar words using strategies such as reading on, using the pictures, context clues, etc. They have also been working in small groups to decode unknown words, make predictions, ask questions, and retell. Work with them at home on these strategies to improve their reading comprehension!

In Writing this week…

Your writer has been working hard on a personal narrative. Owl Moon is our mentor text. We have been discussing how Jane Yolen writes a good beginning, middle, and end of a small moment story and how we can apply that to our writing. We will be working with our long term writing partners to edit and revise our work next week!

In Math this week…

We assessed on Unit 2 and are moving into Unit 3. Your mathematician is working on using efficient strategies to solve problems. The strategies from Unit 2 include using combinations of ten and doubles facts, as well as identifying odd and even numbers.

Audobon Bird Center Field Trip

We got the opportunity to learn all about Missouri birds at the Audobon Bird Center on Monday! We got to see a woodpecker, hawk, and owls up close, as well as learn about the characteristics of raptors. We got to see and feel bird skulls, beaks, talons, and feathers. Students also got to dissect owl pellets and discover all types of rodent bones! Ask your child what they learned on our trip!