Post 9

IMPORTANT DATES:

November 7th: Our book fair preview - We will be previewing the school book fair on 11/7. After our preview, your child should come home with a written or mental list of books that s/he would be interested in purchasing at our book fair. 

November 7 or December 1st from 6:30-8:30: Responsive Home Workshop - The Social and Emotional Learning Department of the Newton Public Schools will be sponsoring Responsive Home Workshops for families to help you create a calm, supportive and encouraging environment at home. This workshop goes hand in hand with the Responsive Classroom work that we are doing in the classroom. Although I have never attended one of these workshops, I have attended a week-long Responsive Classroom workshop with the presenter, Amy Kelly, and it was phenomenal! I am planning to put on my mom-hat and attend one of these workshops myself just to see what it is all about!  

November 9th from 2:15-2:45: Book fair classroom visit - This is our time to purchase books at the school book fair. If you and your child choose to purchase books at the book fair, please send in your child's money on this day in an envelope labeled with your child's name, my name (Ms. E-J) and book fair $. If you are able to join us during this time, it would be much appreciated! 

November 11th: Veteran's Day - NO SCHOOL 

November 23rd: 12:00 dismissal (This is one of 2 early release days at noon (not 12:30) during the school year. The other is on the last day of school. There is no extended day or ASCA on these days. Please plan accordingly.)

November 24-25: Thanksgiving Break - NO SCHOOL 

NEW NOTICES:

Library on 11/7: Due to the Book Fair, library will be held in our classroom this Monday. Please have your child keep their library books for another week, as we will not be going to the library. They should plan to return their books on 11/14. 

Home Toys: Please remind your children to leave all home toys, phones, trading cards, etc. at home. They can be a distraction to our learning and are best left at home.

Snack: We have combined our 2 snack times into one that falls in the middle of our morning. During this time, kids are reading and eating. Please try to send snacks that are clean while eating, such as a piece of fruit or a cheese stick. Greasy or crumbly snacks, such as chips, can ruin our books. Also, please remind your children that there is no food sharing in school. Thanks! 

REMINDERS: 

Homework: Homework will continue to be sent home each Monday, should be completed one day at a time throughout the week (days are written on the bottom of each page) and should be returned on Fridays. On Thursday nights, there is a dictation that parents need to help with as you will dictate sounds, words and sentences and your child will write them. This coming week, there is no Thursday homework due to the holiday on Friday, but please note this for future weeks. Here is a link to an article about ways to help your child with homework at home for some tips on how to manage homework at home. 

Wow words: Thank you for your increased participation with this! Many children came in with words to share and our sharing was quite rich! Please continue to make it part of your daily routine. Each Wednesday in our class is Wow Word Wednesday. Our Wednesday morning work is to write and decorate a Wow Word and we need your help with this. During the week, as you are reading and talking with your child, there will be words that are new to him/her. I encourage your children to inquire about these unfamiliar words and I would like you to do the same, as this is one way your child can be in control of his/her own learning. These new vocabulary words are wow words - words that they can teach the class so that we are all increasing our vocabulary! Please help your child to learn what these wow words mean (Here is a link to Merriam Webster for kids - Word Central). If it is helpful to your child to help learn these words, s/he can jot them down on the Wow Word worksheet in our child's folder. If your child encounters many wow words each week, feel free to have him/her write them on the sheet, but they will pick 1 word to teach us each week. Here is a link to the wow word worksheet in case you need a new one.

CURRICULUM UPDATE:

In reading we: 

• Read The School Mouse by Dick King Smith and Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst.
• Continued practicing making connections (text-to-self, text-to-text and text-to-world) to help us comprehend a text. 

At home, have books talks with your child. If you have already had your conference, please use the red bookmark or the white sheet about reading that you received for question ideas. Also, as you are reading, "think aloud" to help them notice you using the same strategies that they are learning at school, such as activating prior knowledge about a topic or making connections to a text. Say things like, "This reminds me of the time..." or "This reminds me of the part in The Cricket in Times Square when..." Also, please discuss rich vocabulary that you find in the books you are reading. Have your child record these on their wow word worksheet and see if you can use some of these words in your daily conversations.  

Next week, we will continue practicing making meaningful connections to help us comprehend texts. We will also begin reading more non-fiction texts.  

In Fundations (Word Study) we: 

• Learned the the closed syllable exceptions 
• Trick words: pretty, done, goes

At home, Please refer to the  Unit 3 family letter to learn how you can support our word study work at home. Also, look though the fundations - word study section on my website. There, you will find all of the first and second grade trick words. If your child needs practice with these words, please practice through activities such as playing bingo, memory or through reviewing them on flashcards.

Next week, we will continue practicing making words with the closed syllable exceptions and learn about vowel teams.

In writing we: 

• Continued our work on writing small moment stories. We continued playing with our stories to add details. We are using Owl Moon by Jane Yolen and The Leaving Morning by Angela Johnson as our guides.  

At home, continue to support your child's use of his/her tiny topic notebook. Here is the bit on tiny topic notebooks from the previous blogs if you need a refresher: We are learning that authors often get their ideas from events that occur in their lives. To help us remember meaningful moments in our lives, we each received a tiny topic notebook. These notebooks will go to and from school in your child's folder and are a place for your child to jot down meaningful moments that s/he may want to turn into a Small Moment story for writing. If you notice a meaningful moment, please note it with your child. You could say something like, "That was such a meaningful moment. That would make a great Small Moment story." and suggest that s/he jot it on the tiny topic notebook.

Next week, we will continue studying imagery, tension and literary language in Owl Moon by Jane Yolen and practice these techniques in our writing.

In math we:

• Practiced addition and subtraction facts through various games and activities
• Got into small groups and devised a method for organizing and counting all of the seeds in our pumpkins.
• Began our next unit on place value, money and time. 

At home, continue to work on fact fluency. You can use games, such as Math Facts Basketball on ABCYa.com. They also have games connected to the next unit on money, time and place value. If  your child needs practice with these concepts, please check them out. 

In Social Studies we:

• Began our unit on USA/Geography. Between now and the election, we will be discussing the president's role in our country and the voting process.

At home, talk to your child about the election. Here is a link to a site about talking to your child about the presidential election.

In Mindfulness we:

• Discussed the word generosity and talked about how when you are generous, it makes your heart feel good. 

At home, please try to use this word in your everyday vocabulary and note with your child times that you see him/her being generous.

Have a great weekend!