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!
Highlights from our week:
*Stratham Parade: I had such a wonderful time at the Stratham 300th Anniversary Parade! It was great to see some Owl faces marching with us and cheering along the way!
To top it all off, our flotilla depicting all of the schools that have been Stratham over the last 300 years won FIRST PLACE in the float contest! Way to go, SMS students!
*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. We'll jump right into our second unit which focus on addition and subtraction fact strategies. The parent letter for the unit will be sent home on Monday. To help keep skills sharp, students can visit these sites:
*Speech/OT: We're very fortunate to be joined every Wednesday by Mrs. Snow and Mrs. Dukeman. This year they'll give us the skills to help us be successful in our day-to-day learning! During their first visit, they read the story My Mouth is a Volcano to practice strategies for whole group listening. This week, it was a trip into the FUTURE! Equipped with future glasses, Mrs. Snow and Mrs. Dukeman taught us how envisioning our end goal can help us create a plan and see something through to completion.
*Reading Workshop: This week in reading, we were all about the words! Students knew SO many strategies for tackling tricky words. We explored common word beginnings and endings, vowel teams, and multiple meaning words. Most importantly, we remembered to ask, "Does it make sense?" quickly followed by "Does it LOOK right?" and "Does it SOUND right?" They especially enjoyed practicing this with their reading partner playing "word detective". Ask your child about this fun game.
*Writing Workshop: This week in writing, we've been looking to see how published authors and illustrators use different "moves" to convey their stories and then trying out those "moves" 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
Over the next several weeks, we'll be starting two author studies to really dig deep and learn from the masters. We'll be studying Lauren Castillo and Kevin Henkes. Stay tuned!
*Read Aloud: Earlier in the week, we finished our second novel, The World According to Humphrey by Betty G. Birney. It was a HUGE hit! 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 will be sent home on Monday and will be due Tuesday, Oct. 11th!)
*Fall Leaf Project: Information about a fall leaf project will be coming home next week. 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.
********************************************************************************
Important Dates (always available at the top of the blog page for convenience) :
Monday, Oct. 10th: No School (Columbus Day)
Wednesday, Oct. 26th: Early Release (Parent Conferences)
No comments:
Post a Comment