Newsletter- Week 3

Short i

fin*, lip*, pit*, did, THEY, BECAUSE

We will practice these words all week at our phonics time in the morning and we will also practice them as "passwords" to come in and out of the classroom.  Many already know how to spell the more common words, but soon these words will become more of a challenge and repetition is the key, especially with the red words! The practice spelling test went beautifully last week- we will be having our first REAL test this week on Friday morning.

This week in RW, we are learning to work with reading partners.  We sit 'elbow to elbow, knee to knee' with our reading partners and we talk about books and only books.  We are also learning how to warm up our reading muscles.  Just like runners stretch before a long run, readers need to warm up and get ready to read.  We always look at the title and cover picture and think about  what the book will be about.  We think about what words we may encounter, so we are ready.For example, if the book is called At the Farm, we might think, ‘I bet there will be words like cow and chicken and pig in this book.’ Then as we open the book, we look to see if those words can help us read the words on the page.  

Boy, are we AUTHORS!  We are already writing multi-page stories about our life experiences.  We are growing quite a collection of stories we'll be able to use as learning tools all year long!  I am so impressed how determined and persistant these kids are in their writing.  This week, we will work on making our pictures match our words, and making our character's talk- one of my very favorite lessons, using the book "We Are In A Book" by Mo Willems.  We are going to blow your socks off at the Reader's & Writer's Cafe this spring!

Our math vocabulary this week is listed below.  We are learning to dissect numbers by tens and ones.  We are learning that three sets of ten and three ones make the number 33.  We are also learning the important, yet difficult concept of trading up- if we have 3 tens and three ones and we add eight ones, what do we do.  This is something we will work on all year, but if you have small items that need to be sorted and counted at your house, ask your child to group them in sets of ten and then count them for you.  It's so important for the kids to make these connections while they're young, to set them up for success with more difficult concepts in the future.

Math Vocab:  place value, ones, tens, ones place, tens place, hundreds place, rods cubes, flats

What IS a scientist?  Well, you are and I am.  Scientists make observations and need special tools for data collection.  We learned that, to be a good scientist, you must have good communication skills, such as handwriting, to effectively relay our findings to others.  I really just need to take a picture of the chart we made- the ideas were absolutely incredible and way beyond what is normal for a group of 6-7 yr olds!  I am constantly amazed!  Later this week, we will learn about the scientific process and use our 5 senses to investigate POPCORN!

We started real literacy station rotations this morning, but I have a tad more assessment to do before I start reading groups.  I am really looking forward to watching the kids grow in their reading skills!  

We have an exciting week this week, as we get to meet all of our TAMU interns!  So far, we've met Kellie Parr, our senior methods education student that will be in our classroom every Monday and Tuesday until the end of November.  She has already proven to be a great asset, helping every chance she could all day today! We will also have an intern in the room all day on Wednesdays and another one all day on Friday.  Just to let you know our future plans, we are scheduled to have a student teacher in the classroom full time starting in January.  Her name is Kimberly Stephens and she is from Texas State.  She has interned in my classroom for about a year and is a very talented teacher.  She will bring so much to our room- but that's not until next semester. 

 I actually LOVE having interns, as they keep me on my toes, provide an extra set of hands and eyes in the room, and always come with new and exciting ideas.  

This week, I will be sending out conference times for the end of September, where we can discuss where your child is and we can set some academic and social goals for them.  I am also attaching the powerpoint I used for parent orientation, in case you weren't able to make it.  

Thanks for all you do!  Call or email if you need anything!  Charly