It's good to be back! I enjoyed hearing all about winter break and getting back in the swing of things. I have been so impressed at how well students were able to get back into our routines and being even BETTER students than they were in 2017! We have talked about some New Years Resolutions and things we are going to try this year to be a more respectful, responsible, and caring student and friend. Feel free to continue these conversations at home with your child.
Reminders/Updates
- Monday will be Day 4.
- Yearbook forms were sent home this week. The forms are due back January 19th if you are interested in ordering.
- Our post-it supply is getting low. If you are willing and able to donate some standard sized post-its to our classroom, it would be greatly appreciated! :)
- If your child brought their yoga mat towel home last time to get it washed, please bring it back! We will have yoga next week.
- Don't forget to check out Seesaw! This week I uploaded a video and some pictures of students from our Writing Celebration.
Upcoming Events
December 22-January 1: NO SCHOOL Winter Break! :)
January 16: NDLC Parent Info Session 6-7
January 19: Students dismissed at 11:30
January 22: NO SCHOOL
January 23-26 Celebrate NDLC Week
January 23: Game Wear Day (characters, twister, Mario, etc.)
January 23: Family Night: Art Night
January 24: Backwards Wear Day
January 25: Active Wear
January 25: Jump Rope For Heart 6:00
January 26: Camping Wear Day
February 1: NDLC Parent Info Session 6-7
Curriculum Update
Math: We discussed estimating and rounding to the nearest hundred and ten. This is such a useful skill for students to have! Talk to your child about when you use estimation or rounding in your life. Next week, we will work through different methods for adding and subtracting three digit numbers. I encourage students to try out the different methods, but they can choose whichever one makes the most sense to them. These methods might be (probably are) different than what you're used to! Instead of "carrying the one," students will move the "group" to the correct place value. These "groups" can be above the numbers (what is familiar to us when we "carry the one") or below the numbers. I have attached a few pictures that might help. Encourage your child to teach it to you--asking questions as you have them! If you are still having difficulty understanding, you are always welcome to contact me :)
Writing: We used this week to publish our information books! We celebrated all that we have learned by teaching our book. As this unit comes to an end, that means another unit begins! We will start our next unit, Baby Literary Essays, on Monday. Our goal for this unit is to write an essay that states a strong opinion about a piece of literature and support it with evidence from the text. We will begin by flash drafting multiple essays about the same text. We will make our evidence even stronger by lifting lines from the text and using evidence from the beginning, middle, and end. This unit will also be special in that we will be typing these essays instead of hand writing them! We chose to do this for a couple of reasons: students need practice typing, students are required to type their responses on the state tests, and it's something different that I think students will enjoy! :)
Word Study: This week we practiced breaking apart words into its syllables. This is helpful for students in both reading and writing--to correctly read or spell a word with multiple syllables. We will continue practicing this into next week. Our new trick words for this week are: against, knew, and know. A word study pack will come be coming home Monday.
Reading: This past week we did a few assessments since we are transitioning into a new unit. We also got our FIRST book clubs of the year! This is SO exciting! Students are in groups of 3,4,or 5 and they will all be reading the same book. As a club they will decide how much they will be reading at school each day AND how much they will need to read as homework. They will be the "bosses" and it is impressive the wonderful expectations they set for themselves. Monday we will start our Character Study unit. We will be looking deeply at characters and figure out their traits and WHY they act the way they do. Our read aloud we started is Because of Winn Dixie! This is one of my favorites and I am sure the students will love it!
Content: Students were able to choose a continent they would like to study in depth and started this investigations into a country in that continent this week. Ask your student which country they're learning about and what they have learned so far! We will be making presentations and sharing them with the class. Feel free to work on this at home as well if your child is interested!
Know that you can always contact me with any questions or concerns. Have a wonderful weekend!
Best,
Jenny
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