Oct. 4th News

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Mrs. Healey’s Classroom News (10/4/15)

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What We’ve Been Up To:

Happy October! It's hard to believe we've already been in school for over one whole month together! Time flies when you're having fun!

*Words Their Way: We've completed our first unit in Words Their Way! Units run in two-week cycles. On the first day of the cycle, the sort is introduced. Students explore and analyze the words to discover patterns and consistencies and to establish rules. The first week of the unit is done completely in class to build independence. The second week of the cycle is when you will see the word sort come home. Practice will now happen in both the classroom and at home and students will be given a "spelling review" on the spelling pattern on Friday. On these reviews, students will be given five words chosen randomly from their sort list, as well as three "challenge" words that were not on the sort list, but do follow the same pattern. The purpose for Friday's review is to determine if students have mastered the spelling pattern and are ready for a new pattern, or if they need some more time on the current pattern. I will share their spelling review booklets with you at parent conferences.

*Reading & Writing Workshop: I am SO impressed by the work these young readers and writers have been doing (did they tell you I was caught bragging about their hard work and some teachers from Hampton came and watched them in action?!) We've nearly finished both of our first units and will be celebrating our hard work as a class this upcoming week. This launching unit focuses a lot on noticing authors' "moves"---techniques an author uses to enhance their story. As readers, this can help because we can stop & think about author intentions, pay close attention to the ending of stories and see how it brings everything together, and we can think about authors' messages. In writing, we can see how published authors use different "moves" and then try them in our own writing!!! We started studying and trying out illustration techniques, but have moved seamlessly into trying "moves" in our written work. Next time you're reading with your child, have them point out "what they notice" about the writing and illustrations---you'll be amazed!!

After scouring our classroom library, some (and really these are just some!) of the "moves" we found were:

• dialogue
• parentheses
• dashes
• detailed descriptions
• bold words, slanted words, changes in size
• motion lines
• speech bubbles, thinking bubbles
• sound effects

Searching for writing moves!

Our wall of "moves" (pink show illustration techniques; green shows writing techniques)

    Next week, we'll be starting two author studies to really dig deep and learn from the masters. We'll be studying Amy Krouse Rosenthal and Kevin Henkes. Stay tuned!

*Science: We've been having a blast studying the work of scientists while exploring magnets! We learned that scientists start with asking a question, they explore & experiment to find answers or discover new information, they record their data, and they share their results!! Ask your child what they've discovered about magnets so far.

What happens when you put two magnets together?

Carefully recording findings.

Do magnets work through different objects?

We'll continue our discovery this week!

*Math: We finished up our first math unit this week and students took their first assessment. After students have made corrections (in colored pencils!), tests will be sent home. Let me know if you have any questions regarding your child's assessment. After testing, we wasted no time at all and jumped right into our second unit which focus on addition and subtraction fact strategies. The parent letter for the unit was sent home one Friday.
To help keep skills sharp, students can visit these sites:
Counting Money
IXL (P.1 Names and values of common coins; P.3 Count money- pennies, nickels, and dimes only; P.4 Count money - up to $1)

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*Read Aloud: Earlier in the week, we finished our first novel, The World According to Humphrey by Betty G. Birney. Read aloud is one of the students’ favorite times of day (and mine as well!) . They come in from lunch and listen intently as each day we get further and further into a wonderful novel. The World According to Humphrey is a story about a hamster who is the classroom pet of room 26. Each weekend he travels home with one of his classmates and learns a little bit about them along the way. Turns out Humphrey is pretty good at problem solving! Humphrey is the main character of many other stories. Friendship According to Humphrey and Surprises According to Humphrey are some of the great books in this series if you’re looking for a read aloud for at home! Many of the Humphrey books are available through Scholastic (October book orders due Friday, Oct. 9th!)

 *Fall Leaf Project: Information about a fall leaf project will be coming home on Monday. Students will be asked to gather 20-30 dried leaves to bring into school. While the leaves are not due for a couple of weeks, it’s a good idea to start keeping an eye out for interesting, unique, bright, or bold leaves as they start to fall.

*October Related Arts Schedule:

Sun	Mon	Tues	Wed	Thurs	Fri	Sat
4	5 Library	6 Music	7 PE	8 Maker Space	9 Art	10
11	12 NO SCHOOL	13 PE	14 Library	15 Music	16 PE	17
18	19 Maker Space	20 Art	21 PE	22 Library	23 Music	24
25	26 PE	27 Maker Space	28 Art	29 PE	30 Library	31

Have a great week!!