Nov. 14-18

Thank you to ALL of the parents who participated in parent/teacher conferences!  Although the minutes seemed to fly by, it was valuable time well spent.  Thank you for helping me to know your child better and for continuing to partner with me so we can work together to ensure your child's success!

We had a busy week after being home for so long!

Language Arts:  The letter of the week was C and our sight words were "in" and "it."  Out word last week was "at."  Last week, much of our read aloud time was spent learning about the Five Senses.  We enjoyed fun experiments on the senses smell, hear, and touch.  We also read an interesting book with picture puzzles to exercise our sense of sight.  This week we got to enjoy our sense of taste!  We went on a cookie hunt and were excited to find a plate of cookies waiting for us in our room!  Yum!  After reading Little Cloud we used our imaginations to write about what shape our clouds took.  We read the book Cookie's Week and sequenced the story to retell.  We are very excited to be starting Writer's Workshop!  We had a discussion about WHY we write (grocery lists, letters to people, to become smarter...better readers and writers, to tell people things) and about people we know who write (moms, dads, grandmas, grandpas, friends, teachers, US.)  We discussed what makes authors good writers (writing about what they know.)  We also talked about what we can use in the classroom to help us with our writing (writing offices, word wall, dictionaries, other books, word lists.)  Very soon, we will begin MAKING great things in Writer's Workshop!

Math:  Number writing practice, counting object and matching with numbers, symmetry, understanding number stories, and sequencing kept us busy this week in math.

Social Studies:  The importance of using good manners at home and at school has been the social skill topic this week.  Saying please, thank you, and you're welcome are certainly magic words.  They help other people want to help you. Excuse me and I'm sorry are considerate phrases.  Giving compliments makes other feel good!  We want to always treat others as we would like to be treated!

Science:  We finished up our senses unit this week.

Notes:  Mr. Simonich, Mrs. Loos, and Mrs. Hernandez were guest readers these past two weeks. Thank you!  Please note that I have added links to the guest reader sign up and Valentine party on the left side of this blog post.  Although Mondays are listed as an option for guest reading, I'd like to avoid the morning slot...we are busy with our letter of the week at that time.  With Writer's Workshop beginning, I have two favors to ask:  If you would like to donate reams of white copy paper, we use a lot of it for small books.  If you would like to fold and staple small books at home, I would love and appreciate your help.  Just email me and I'll send home supplies!  Thank you!!!!

It was fun seeing May Watts families at our Culver's Night

Have a great weekend!