Spelling Words October 30 - November 6

This weeks spelling words are high frequency and short 'o' words. Remember our test will be Friday November 6th.

1. does
2. into
3. he
4. this
5. water
6. job
7. dog
8. log
9. frog
10. rock

Don't forget that we are going on our zoo field trip this Tuesday Nov. 3rd. Please send your child to school with a bagged lunch in a disposable bag. We are looking forward to a fun-filled day of learning! :)

Narrative Writing

This week, we are finishing up our work on narrative writing and we will begin a new genre of writing next week. Talk to your child about the elements of a narrative story and make sure they understand all of the parts. This is a picture of a checklist that your child has to fill out with a teacher when they are finished writing a narrative story. In order for their story to meet the standard, they have to have all of those elements checked off.
Something you can do with your child is make up stories together and tell them to each other orally. You can start a story with an engaging beginning such as..."One cold and snowy morning..." This is something easy you can do together while cleaning the house or driving in the car.
Thanks for your continued support from home!

Story Problems

This year we will be doing A LOT of story problems in math investigations. This is something you can orally practice with your child. An example of a story problem would be: "There were 5 students on a bus...the bus stopped and five more students got on. How many students are on the bus now?" Or to practice subtraction you could say: "There were 8 students on the bus...when the bus stopped, 4 students got off. How many students are left on the bus?" As your child figures these out at home, encourage them to use their fingers if needed, draw pictures, or use any 'hands on' manipulatives. Here are some pictures of us working on a story problem in class this week.

Spelling Words October 23 - October 30

This weeks spelling words are high frequency and short 'i' words.

1. how
2. many
3. on
4. why
5. they
6. fix
7. mix
8. six
9. in
10. him

Word Families

Today we explored the 'en' word family. If we know how to spell 'en' then we can spell lots of other words too...pen, men, when, ten, then...
How many more 'en' words can you and your child come up with together?

Spelling Words October 16 - October 23

This weeks spelling words are high frequency and short 'i' words.

1. went
2. walk
3. did
4. saw
5. me
6. it
7. sit
8. hit
9. pick
10. kick

The Game of Ten Turns

We have learned a new math game called Ten Turns. In this game, students accumulate counters as they practice connecting the oral counting sequence and written numerals with the quantities they represent.
To play, students have 1 number cube, some counters, and the Ten Turns game sheet. To start, one player rolls the number cube and takes out the number of counters that is shown. They record what was rolled and their "total number". The next player rolls the number cube and also takes out the number of counters shown and they add it to their pile. They record the number rolled and the new "total number" in their pile. This repeats over the coarse of 10 turns.
We are encouraging students to use the strategy of 'counting on' so that they don't have to count the entire pile of counters each turn. For example: if their pile has 12 counter in it, and they are adding 3 more...instead of starting to count the entire pile "1, 2, 3, 4...", we encourage them to put the number 12 in their head and count up 3 more "put the 12 in my head and count up 13, 14, 15". See all of our learning in these pictures! :)

Reading Strategies

As we continue working on reading strategies....today we talked about the word family 'og'. Here are some of the 'og' words we discovered today.

Spelling Words October 9 - 16

This weeks spelling words are short 'a' and high frequency words. Remember that all homework is due and test will be next Friday the 16th.

1. all
2. are
3. find
4. make
5. play
6. had
7. bad
8. sad
9. fan
10. can

Which Holds More

In Math Investigations today we played a game called Which Holds More. This game focuses on estimating more and less volume.
In this game, students have two different sized empty cups in front of them and they estimate which empty container they think could hold more. Then they check their estimates by filling the containers with cubes and then counting them. (Students are learning that just because a container looks taller...doesn't mean it holds more inside. If the other container is short but wide, sometimes that will hold more.)
Here are some pictures of our super "estimators" at work! :)

Word Families

As we continue with our word families...today we focused on 'ug'. How many 'ug' words can you and your child come up with? Here are some of the 'ug' words we explored today.

Word Families

This week in readers workshop, we are working on our next reading strategy..."word families". Word families (sometimes called phonograms or chunks) can help our students figure out patterns within words. Once students are able to recognize these one syllable word patterns, it makes it easier for them to sound out/decode longer words.

Today we are focusing on the the word family "at". By adding letters to "at", how many new words can you and your child come up with? Here's a picture of some of the words we came up with today.

The Math 100 Chart

This week in math investigations we are focusing on our 100 chart. We want students to be able to read and order numbers 1-100 as well as explore patterns in the number sequence. Today we are playing "Find the Missing Number". In this game, students take turns covering up certain numbers and the other group members must figure out the missing or covered up numbers on the chart. You can practice with your child at home counting and writing numbers to 100. This would be something easy you could do together while driving in the car.

Spelling Words October 2 - October 9

This weeks spelling words are high frequency and short "a" words. Don't forget to be reading every single day!

1. come
2. down
3. away
4. no
5. will
6. at
7. cat
8. ran
9. an
10. man