Weekly Update: January 24-28

Greetings!

Does February really begin next week? Let’s hope that groundhog doesn’t see his shadow, and some warmer days are ahead! 

• Below I have attached the first names of the 23 students in our class for you to use as a reference when preparing your valentines!
• Thank you for participating in Crazy Hat Day! The children enjoyed seeing the crazy hats that popped up today!

Spelling

This week the children had the opportunity to choose their own spelling words.  The students spent time during class picking words they were interested in, words from our rain forest unit, words that are important to or often used by them, or high-frequency words.  

Reading

We have concluded our winter round of testing. Scores from both the MAP assessments and CBM assessments (reading fluency) will be available for you at conference time!

The children enhanced their vocabularies with Text Talk this week! We read The Bad Case of Stripes by David Shannon. The kids were introduced to 6 juicy new words: distraction, contagious, remedies, vanished, altered, and perplexed. We were challenged  in class to use these words as much as possible, and we tallied each time they were used! At the end of the week, it appears that "vanished" had won! (Did you hear any of these words come out at home? I hope you did! :)

We will be ready to begin Unit 4 of Treasures next week!

Math

This week we worked on solution strategies for addition and subtraction problems as well as solving 2-digit addition and subtraction problems with number stories.  The students did a great job at writing their own number stories on their homelink!  We also discussed “start-change-end”, “parts-and-total”, and “quantity, quantity, difference” number stories. The children worked to read story problems and determine which diagram would best help them solve the problem.  We also worked on our “Mad Minute” for subtraction- and even reviewed our addition facts!  The students are doing very well and their scores are constantly improving!  It is so exciting to see the students get faster each day and get excited when they have improved!  Try timing your student at home to see how fast they can solve their math facts!

Cursive

I continue to be impressed with the children’s beautiful handwriting! Again, here are the keys to writing our best:

1. Sit tall in our chairs with both feet on the floor, and our shoulders back
2. Slightly slant the paper
3. Place our guide hand down on the top corner of the paper

This encourages proper posture and reminds them to take their handwriting seriously! Please encourage these same steps at home!

Science

The children have really developed a strong understanding of the rain forest habitat. We have studied its location, layers, animals, plants, and even how humans use and destroy this habitat. The students are amazed to hear about the destruction it faces as 2,000 trees are cut down every minute. They are putting together a multi-paragraph essay of showing all of the learning they have done over the last few weeks. After our practice as a class, we are ready to break into small cooperative learning groups next week to zero in on one of the following habitats: mountain, desert, ocean, lake, and prairie!

Coming Soon:

February 2: Ground Hog’s Day!

February 14:  Valentine's Day Party; 2:45 pm. See our class list attached below! 

Thanks for reading!
Enjoy the weekend!

  

Valentine’s List

1. Christine
2. Lucas
3. Kristopher
4. Emily
5. Michael D.
6. Hannah
7. Nicolette
8. Peter
9. Audrey
10. Annie
11. Logan
12. Azan
13. Aleksandra
14. Robert
15. Noah
16. Lexi
17. Eric
18. Alya
19. Jack
20. Michael R.
21. Sarah
22. Matthew
23. Brooke