Newsletter 11/10

We did a lot of social studies lessons this week, learning about Election Day and Veteran's Day. We learned that the United States is a democracy and we get to vote on our leaders.  We learned what a veteran is and why we should be thankful for veterans services.  A friend shared photos of her grandfather, who is a veteran and came for the breakfast, and we got to ask her questions.  Lastly, we sang to the veterans at their special ceremony.

Mrs. Farson, the school psychologist, visited on Friday to teach us a lesson about personal space.  We read a book about a boy who goes to Personal Space Camp and learned how to stay inside his own space.  We also learned when and where it's ok to get into someone's personal space "bubble" (hugging a family member, etc.).  We all got certificates from Personal Space Camp!

In reading workshop, we learned more super powers!  We activated our PERSISTENCE POWER!  This power helps us to use multiple powers when we get stuck on a word.  Sometimes, picture power doesn't work, so we need sound power.  We also have partner power to support us.  Super readers never give up!

We finished our Looking Closely writing unit and celebrated by sharing our pieces with Dr. Trifiatis' class.  In this unit we learned to examine an object and write about it in detail, including its color, shape, size and texture.  Our published pieces will be hung in the hallway for all to see.

We continued our unit on comparing in our math lessons this week.  This week, we studied the length of our names.  We used cubes to measure how long our names are, and then we searched for friends with longer and shorter names.  Lastly, we organized the names by length from shortest to longest.  After studying our names, we played a card game where we pulled four cards from a deck and put them in order from least to greatest.

We continue to learn more sight words and sounds in phonics and we're learning how to form uppercase letters in our handwriting lessons.  We're about halfway through the alphabet.

News and Notes:

• It's cold!  Please teach your child to zip/button the winter jacket or coat that s/he will be wearing most this winter.
• Please make sure to LABEL all winter items with your child's name

Student generated list on what we learned in our Looking Closely writing unit

Sharing our finished writing pieces with friends!

Singing to veterans

Multisensory "Wet, Dry, Try" lessons in handwriting

Comparing the length of our names

The comparing work we've done in our math workbooks