Reading with Partners

This is our anchor chart from last week's reading lessons.

Newsletter 10/28/16

We finished up our unit titled "We Are Readers!" this week, discussing how to read with partners and how to "read" emergent  ("favorite") books.  A lesson called "put a pinch of you in" taught us how to speak with a partner about books while adding an "I think..." statement.  You can model this at home, too, and then ask your child's thoughts.  We also learned that we can read favorite stories by looking at the pictures and words, using character voices and retelling the story with "connecting words". This is a hard concept.  We connect pages using words like "and", "then", "next", and "finally" (to name a few).  Ask your child to use connecting words as they "read" the favorite books coming home each night.  We will be practicing this all year.

We finished our first piece in Writing Workshop!!!  We chose one piece to "fix and fancy up" (edit) and focused on that all week.  Our partners helped, too.  Then, on Friday, we celebrated all that we've learned as writers!  We shared a snack of pumpkin seeds and toasted our success with "bubbly".  See photos below.

We solved a problem in math this week where we had to compare two amounts and prove which was more and which was less.  We are learning to understand what a problem is saying, think and plan how we are going to solve it, and then begin.  We also measured around the room comparing lengths of items to a train of 10 cubes (see photos).  We are learning new mathematical vocabulary all the time!

We had hands-on science fun while carving pumpkins this week!  Thanks again to those who volunteered!

Thank you to the Bolton, Himel, DiBenedetto, Doody, Murphy, Nichols, Patel, Katz, Eising, Sedlock, Kohlberger, Webb and Malone families who donated toward our classroom library this week! I hope I didn't forget anyone; I'm overwhelmed by your generosity.  We are so excited about our great new books!

News and Notes:

• Have you sent in your child's cold weather emergency clothes?
• Have you sent in your child's spiral notebook?
• Picture retakes 11/3.  Please let me know if you want one.
• Halloween Parade (for K only!): Monday 10 am.  We'll be walking up from the K side of the school, across the front sidewalk and into the front door.  All parents should be outside on the edge of the front walkway.  See you then!  

CHEERS!

WE ARE AMAZING AUTHORS!

Comparing Lengths

Halloween Safety

Darien Police Officer Dan visited us on Monday.  Below is a list of safety tips we received.

Pumpkin Carving Fun!

What a blast we had carving pumpkins today! We used 4/5 of our senses, and tomorrow (thanks to Mrs. Law) we'll eat the seeds!  Then we will have experienced the pumpkins with ALL 5 of our senses.  What fun!  Thank you to Mrs. Law, Mrs. Doody, Mrs. Webb and Mr. Kohlberger for helping today.  Happy Halloween!

Newsletter 10/21/16

We continued to work with our partners in Reading Workshop this week, reading "learn about the world" books and storybooks.  We had so much fun reading our favorite books using character voices.  We also began to search for character's feelings within stories.  Soon these "favorite" books will be coming home for you to read with your child.  Keep an eye out for a black, cloth book sleeve with a favorite story inside!  Lastly, we studied how readers connect the pages of a book with words like "and then...".  This helps a reader retell a story after reading it.

We also connected pages of stories in our own writing!  We pushed ourselves as writers to add more details to our work.  Writing partners asked questions about our stories and gave us ideas on what we could add.  We learned that stories show who, what and where something happened.  

We played a lot of math games this week, learning how to connect number words, numerals and quantities.  We also used a 10-frame to build numbers and a die to develop visual images for quantities up to 6.  We've been working on mastering number sense 1-5 using "math hands" and "math ears".  Ask your child to show you how!  See photos below.

This week was all about the five senses.  We focused on a different sense every day, reading about how the body works and then doing experiments.  We had fun touching mystery items in a touch box and guessing the scents of smelly markers, too.  See photos below.

News and Notes:

• Your child's Book Fair wish list will be coming home in Monday's backpack mail
• Next week we will have a presentation about recycling and another about Halloween safety.
• Pumpkin Carving (and seed baking) next Thursday 1:45-2:45.  See volunteer calendar
• Halloween parade 10/31 at 10 am in the outside bus loop.
• Your child will soon be coming home with a favorite classroom book to borrow for the night.  Have fun reading these beloved tales with your kids!

Games today!

Look at the fun we had during our first Games time today!  We played math and science games.  During Game time we learn, practice good sportsmanship and have fun!  Thank you to our 3 parent volunteers.  I can't do Games without you!  If you're interested in coming in for Games (ideally 4 parents each time), please see the available spots on our volunteer calendar and contact our room parents, Mrs. Law and Mrs. FitzPatrick.

Matching amounts depicted in various ways 1-10

Go Fish!  Recognizing numerals 1-12

5 Senses Match- determining which sense one uses to "experience" an item

Great Number Race!  Numeral recognition in various forms 1-6

Newsletter 10/14/16

We worked with reading partners for the first time in Reading Workshop this week.  We learned the difference between "private" and "partner" reading.  We also began to learn about what reading partners do: how they sit, hold the book, and what they talk about.  Ask your child to teach you how to "See-Saw" read!  See some reading partners in the photos below.

We are almost done learning the "Frog Jump" letters in our handwriting lessons.  Look for review practice to come home next week.  We are learning how to spell more sight words and trying to write with spaces between words.  We will be working on this all year.  We also learned how writers often have so much to say that they need to add more pages.  

Besides writing with spaces, we also were introduced to syllables.  Have fun listening to how many syllables are in words at home.  Who in your family has the most syllables in their name?  The least?

In our math lessons, we did a "math hands" activity, trying to replicate numbers on our fingers up to five.  We also reviewed how to organize our thinking during an Exemplars problem.  We re-did the problem we tried last week, and this time, we were SO much better!  We collected and organized data as well, finding out who our class thinks is the scariest Halloween character!

We finished our study of Christopher Columbus by meeting our 5th Grade Buddies!  They came to our room and helped us make ships.  We'll be working with them monthly, so see if your kindergartner remembers his/her buddy's name.  See some photos of our Buddy Time below.

We enjoyed an assembly about the adventures of Lewis and Clark today, too.  Some of our friends were chosen to go on stage!

News and Notes:

• Make sure you've read the Halloween note I emailed yesterday.  
• Next week:  Five senses

Reading Partners

Columbus ships with our 5th Grade Buddies

Lewis and Clark assembly

Fire truck and buddy visits today!

Surprise!  We kicked off our unit on Fire Safety with a visit from local firefighters!  Fireman Dan and Fireman Dennis taught us useful safety tips.  We also met our 5th Grade Buddies in Mr. Latona's class.  More photos of that on our Friday newsletter...   Happy Columbus Day! 

Apple Cidering Fun!

Newsletter 10/7/16

Our field trip was so much fun!  We learned that apples are meant to be eaten so animals can carry the seeds.  We went into a farm barn and pressed our own apples into cider!  Then we got to drink it!  We walked through the farm and visited the animals, had our picnic snack and then played on the playground.  See the group photo below (more photos to come soon!).

In phonics lessons we're learning new sight words: I, see, a and an.  We wrote these words using correct spelling in all of our writing this week.  We also read them in books.  We've been introduced to letters b, c, f, i, m, n, o, t and u in our phonics lessons so far.  Students are working on memorizing each letter's "story", that states the letter name, keyword and sound.  Ask your child for the "story" of these letters (i.e."b, bat, /b/").  Eventually, your child will know a "story" for every letter in the alphabet.

We're using our knowledge of letter sounds to "stretch out" words in Writing Workshop.  Ask your child to tell you how to use an imaginary rubber band to hear sounds within words.  When we write, our sight words are always spelled correctly and sometimes we can use environmental print to find correct spelling, but otherwise, we have to "stretch out" words.  We'll be working on this all year.

In our reading lessons we learned that readers look, think, read and learn!  Right now we're reading two types of books: storybooks and "learn-about-the-world" books (nonfiction).  We spent time reading nonfiction books this week and then sharing what we learned with a partner.

We did our first Exemplar problem in math this week.  We tried it alone and then spent time discussing how to do it as a group.  We learned that mathematicians can solve problems using organized diagrams.

We finished up our Johnny Appleseed lessons and moved on to Christopher Columbus!  The students were so interested in learning about his adventure.  He made a mistake, but we still honor him for his bravery!

We began recording our weather observations in a Science Journal this week.  We are so lucky to have an apple tree right outside our window!  Twice a month, we'll record our observations of how the apple tree changes over the course of the school year.  

News and Notes:

• No School next Wednesday, 10/12
• Fire Safety Homework (your family's safe meeting place) is due on MONDAY.
• Scholastic orders are due 10/13
• Please let me know if you have a veteran in your family who will be attending our school Veteran's Day celebration