March 29, 2019

We celebrated all we've learned in reading nonfiction books this week!  Everyone went to the library to read various texts on an animal: some read books, some used informational websites.  Everyone gathered information about their animal and then got together in their animal groups to compare their findings.  We learned that when someone wants to learn about a specific topic, it's useful to use various sources, that way, we learn more!  We shared our findings with one another and then worked as a team to design a group poster, highlighting all that we learned about our animal.  See the photos below.

In Writer's Workshop, we used a partner to help us think of more to write in our books.  Everyone is working on elaboration, adding more information to our text and illustrations, too.  We are also continuing to work on beginning sentences with a capital letter and ending with a period. 

We worked with numbers 50-79 this week, building them with tens and ones, putting them in order from least to greatest and completing number lines with missing numbers.  We are working on understanding place value and strengthening our ability to count forward from any number, up to, and sometimes beyond, 100.

Geography has been so much fun!  We began the week by looking at various maps and noticing what was the same and what was different.  Then, we began to understand our place on the map, by using Google Earth.  We examined our planet, country, state, town and neighborhood.

We continue to collect weather data at the end of every month.  We were so excited to notice that we had more "green" (mild) days than "blue" (cold) days on our temperature graph!  It's finally getting warmer!  We read books about spring and made a spring word web (see below).

News and Notes:

• Book sleeves due on Monday
• April Scholastic book orders due Wednesday

Spring fever chalking!

Our nonfiction reading anchor chart

Spring word web

Reading books about maps

Finding Ox Ridge on Google Earth

Building and comparing numbers

Putting numbers in counting order

Working with a partner during Writer's Workshop to elaborate

Researching in the library

Comparing our data

Our finished research project posters

Fun during Choice Time

Silly activities in Morning Meeting

Newsletter 3/22

We looked for important vocabulary words while reading our nonfiction texts in Reading Workshop this week.  We read through the books and tried to find which words were most important ("expert words").  Sometimes these words are in bold, but most often they are not.  Once we found a word, we wrote it on a post-it and stuck it to the book cover.  Then when partner time began, we became teachers, teaching new vocabulary to one another and reading new words in texts together.

We continued writing our All About books in Writing Workshop this week.  This week we looked at how parts (chapters) of nonfiction texts are organized with a heading on the top.  We thought to ourselves "This part of my book is all about...", and we tried to make headings of our own.  Once we did this, and wrote more in each part, we had to make sure that the writing we added still connected with the heading, and didn't teach any random facts that didn't belong.

We focused on numerals 20 to 49 this week, building "ten towers", so we could easily count by tens and counting the "extra cubes" leftover to count forward by ones.  For example, using place value markers, one would count 43 cubes by first touching the 10 towers and saying "10, 20, 30, 40" and then touching the extra individual cubes and counting forward by ones "41, 42, 43".  Some caught on to this quite quickly and it was tough for others.  We'll be counting numbers up to 100 this way during this unit, so we'll get more practice.  We built numerals using connecting cubes and found the number on a 100s chart and wrote what number comes before/after.  (see photo).  

We also did a problem solving Exemplar this week.  We reviewed how to visualize the problem first, then we solved it with a manipulative model.  Next, we made a diagram with a key.  Finally, we learned how we can also solve problems with ten frames.  Once our diagrams were done, we all used ten frames to show our problem solving.

In our geography lessons, we reviewed positional words (in front, behind, next to, beside, etc) and added in left and right.  We played some fun left and right movement games, too.  The next day, we learned about a compass rose and how the words north, east, south and west can be helpful when following directions and understanding a map.

News and Notes:

• Book sleeves due Monday

A manipulative model of our Exemplar problem

A diagram with a key

A diagram that recognizes the opportunity to count in pairs

A diagram that counts and labels by twos

Spring crafts!

Finding blends all around

Labeling important vocabulary in nonfiction texts

Reading new vocabulary with partners

Building numbers with 10 towers and extra cubes, then finding the numbers before and after

Newsletter 3/15

We changed partners in Reading Workshop this week! First, we had to establish the partnership by working as a team and finding a new place to read.  Then, we worked on strengthening our partnership skills: sitting side by side, holding the book in the middle, taking turns, LISTENING to one another and not just thinking about what we'll say next.  These are great skills for everyone to work on!  We also learned that readers of nonfiction look carefully and the pictures, think about what they see and then teach their partners what they've learned.

In our nonfiction writing unit, we learned that once we've got a piece planned, the ideas for each page sketched, and at least one teaching sentence per page, then we go back and add more!  We can add more details and labels to the picture.  Then we can write more about what we've added.  We are learning to elaborate by adding more information to each page.

We began our unit on numbers 1-100 and worked on skip counting by 2s, 5s and 10s.  We counted tons of things by organizing them into piles of 5s and 10s to make counting easier.

In phonics, we learned the difference between long and short vowels, so now we're on the look out for them everywhere!

We had fun learning about leprechauns and rainbows a bit, and we also began our next social studies unit on Geography.  We're really excited to learn more about maps.  See our thoughts about the first map we examined- one of Connecticut, below.

News and Notes:

• Book sleeves due Monday
• Please let me know if you need a reminder of your conference time next week
• Short days next T-F.  Make sure to adjust School Dismissal Manager if your routine will change.

Skip counting by 2s

Skip counting by 10s

Dictations

Some of our silly green friends

Organizing groups of 10 to find a total, and working as a team

Newsletter 3/8

We continued to examine nonfiction books this week.  We looked at different types of nonfiction texts and tried to figure out the main idea by saying "This book is mostly about..." after we read it.  We also read a poem about kites and added it to our Poetry Book.  Then we made kites to fly in our classroom!  Last, we read Yoko by Rosemary Wells and discussed what the most important part of the book is.

We didn't do a lot of writing on our nonfiction pieces this week, but we did try to finish one and begin another.  We are using Sharing Time to help us get ideas for writing.  When your child shares, s/he can teach the class all about a topic, usually the topic s/he is writing about in Writing Workshop at the time.  The classmates ask the sharer questions, and we may use those questions to think about details we can add to our writing.

We finished up our math unit on shapes and did some work on patterns this week.  We are beginning a new unit on numbers 1-100.  Look for the note sent home on Thursday for more information about our new unit, and how you can support our learning at home.

Author Alan Katz visited this week and we had a High Touch, High Tech program visit and do a fun program about forces.  This corresponded with our Push and Pull unit in science.  See the fun photos below.

News and Notes:

• Book sleeves are due on Monday
• Please let me know if you need a reminder of your conference date/time
• Half days 3/19-3/22 for conference week

Author Alan Katz

Lions and Lamb for March!

Spelling words in phonics lessons

Math during Morning Meeting

High Touch, High Tech fun!

A seat belt can stop a forward force.  

Gravity is a force, too.  What happens when we quickly pull the index card out?

Magnets are forces, too!

Magnets attract and repel.  We made these cars move without touching them!