Hello, October!

Greetings!

Fall has arrived! Here are few reminders for you before my recap of the week:

* Picture Day is Monday

* Our field trip to the Arlington Heights Historical Museum and Library is on Tuesday. Please pack your child's lunch in a disposable bag- that will make our travels a bit more manageable. We are so excited to learn about the history of our town!

* Please remember to send in your child's choices for their Arlington Heights Landmark study! We will begin working on these projects on Tuesday afternoon in the LMC. Thank you to those of you who are able to volunteer! We appreciate your help. See you then!

* October book orders are due on Wednesday morning

* There is no school on Friday (SIP day)

* There is no school on Monday 10/10 (Columbus Day)

Spelling

We worked this week on words that have the short and long /i/ sound. Next week we will focus on words with the long and short /o/ sound! Why not search out words with these sounds over the weekend as a preview for the week? Keep a look out in any type of print you encounter, books, street signs, cereal boxes, the newspaper, etc. and make a list!

Reading

The common theme to our literacy activities this week was “Being Yourself.” We kick off every new theme building our background knowledge by talking about the topic. New oral vocabulary words include: remarkable, skill, amusement, entertain, and magnificent. The children grew more comfortable with these words each day. It is so fascinating to watch them begin to incorporate these words into their vocabulary. Our whole group story this week was a photo essay about a little girl named Rosina, who is deaf. We learned that even though she cannot hear, she is just like us in many ways! She learns the same things we do in school, plays the same sports, and enjoys arts and crafts like we do! She can read and is a great helper at home. She just happens to do these things through the use of sign language. Our comprehension strategy continued to focus on summarizing. The children sorted information they read using a web that separated the main idea from the details they pulled from the text. New vocabulary words from this selection included: celebrate, cultures, deaf, language, relatives and signing. All of our reading groups met this week as well! The children are showing much independence with out daily 5 centers. We practiced locating "Tumblebooks" through the blog online, so the children now also have access to the listening center option during this time!

Grammar

The children practiced identifying the predicate in a sentence this week. We found it was really easy to find the predicate after first finding the subject of the sentence! We also learned that commas are placed in sentences to separate cities and states, as w

ell as the date from the year! We “acted” out the punctuation in our sentences by raising our arms for a capital letter, stomping for a period, jumping for an exclamation point, and wiggling for a comma. Ask your child to show you!

Math

The children played a game this week called “Beat the Calculator.” Playing this game, the children realized that even thought the calculator is a pretty quick way to solve math problems, it is no match for the brain when it comes to basic facts. The brain is always faster! We have begun our focused practice of our basic addition math facts. Many of the children are quite comfortable with their doubles facts. We reviewed the concept of a “turn around” fact (in addition, the numbers can be switched back and forth.) The children also quickly picked up on the +9 fact. Our goal is to move away from counting on our fingers or the hundreds chart to solve these basic fact problems!

Social Studies

Our Arlington Heights unit is in progress. We have begun the unit discussing the difference between “needs” and “wants.” The children learned that human beings require food, clothing, and shelter in order to survive. We read a story called “A Packet of Seeds,” about a pioneer family who moved west to acquire more land and build their n

ew home. We imagined what life was like back on the prairie with the nearest neighbor miles away, and without easy access to stores, or even a doctor. The children illustrated the tall prairie grasses, fertile soil, and various plants, animals and insects. We will discuss the early inhabitants next week- beginning with the Potowatomi Indians and moving into the first settlers! We are looking forward to an authentic learning opportunity at the Arlington Heights Historical Museum on our field trip on Tuesday.

Recess Challenge

You might have heard your child mention some out of the ordinary recess activities.. I have been outside with the children during recess this week giving the kids a "challenge" of a few minutes of physical activity. Each recess period is a different challenge. Examples include: laps around the field of skipping, walking, running; hanging from the monkey bars for 30-60 seconds at a time; medicine ball hot potato; dribbling the basketball/soccer ball; or completing an obstacle course on the playground. The children are enjoying these alternatives to recess- and are eager to see what's coming up next! Strangely enough, there are many children who are not in our class that are also choosing to participate! Its fun to see them so excited and eager to do some exercise at recess time!

I hope you are enjoying the weekend!