What are we up to this week?

Introducing our Super Improver Wall 

Has your child told you about our 'Super Improver Wall'? If you have been in our classroom, you may have seen it on the wall near our cubbies. The wall has 7 different 'levels' and students must earn 10 stickers to move up to the next level.  Students can earn stickers for various reasons including, solving conflicts with friends in appropriate ways, showing kindness, working hard to master a skill, and/or helping others to master a skill. 

A letter will go home in your child's daily folder when they move up a level. Please use this opportunity to make a big deal, brag, celebrate your kiddo and encourage them to share what they did to earn the stickers😃

Language Arts

In reading this week, we continue to focus on identifying the character and setting in fiction books. We also continue to work on 

-phoneme segmentation fluency (saying all the sounds you hear in a word)

-nonsense word fluency (saying the sounds and/or made up words) 

-sight word fluency 

You can support the 3 skills above by completing our weekly reading homework and choosing a different activity each night. 

Sight Words: review week

Does your child already know all the sight words in the yellow homework packet? Are you looking for more words they can master? Please email me, and I will send home a second list. 

In writing, we continue to explore various pattern books, including pattern books with no changes (I like to... on every page) and pattern books with 1 change (I like to... on every page except the last page, I do not like...). In fact, we added a page to our pattern books from last week and made them into a pattern book with one change. Lastly, we learned about  'See Saw' pattern books, where there is a question/answer pattern on each page (What do we learn at school? We learn about math). Later on in the week, we will use our understanding of pattern books to create opinion books (I like pizza because...) where we will state our opinion, and give a reason to support it. As always, we will continue to focus on correctly forming uppercase/lowercase letters, using sight words in our writing, using spaces between words, sounding out unknown words, using a capital letter at the beginning of each sentence, using mostly lowercase letters in a sentence, and using punctuation at the end of a sentence. 

In math this week, we continue to hone in on our understanding of numbers in the teens 11-19. 

-representing teen numbers with a group of objects

-using tens frames to represent numbers in the teens, so we can determine the 'partners' for the teen numbers. 

-correctly writing numbers 11-20 

At home, have your child use their collection of Matchbox cars, Barbies, super heroes, or whatever to represent a number in the teens. Have them arrange the group using a tens frame and have them tell you the partners that make up the number. 

Thanksgiving Activities-donations needed

As part of our Thanksgiving Day unit next week, we will be focusing on long ago vs. today. To help us understand that how we get our food has changed from long ago vs. today, we will be making our own butter. To do this, we will need donations of the following:

-1 quart of heavy cream 

-6 small plastic containers (can be found at the dollar store)

-1 pack of Saltine crackers (salted)

*Please email me if you are able to donate any of the above items. All donations are needed by Tuesday*

Interims going home this week

For those of you not familiar with interims, they are mid-quarter reports letting you know how your child is progressing halfway through the quarter. These reports will be going home in your child's daily folder on Friday. Please feel free to email and/or call me should you have any questions or concerns. 

Our Writers' Celebration

A fun time was had by all during our Writers' Celebration today. The kiddos shared their favorite page from the pattern book they made this week to the class. Later, they got into groups and shared their whole book with friends. And, as an added bonus we were able to enjoy some delicious donuts for a classmate's birthday!

Halfway through the second quarter

Can you believe we are almost halfway through the second quarter? It feels like just yesterday I was meeting all the kiddos for 'Meet the Teacher', showing them where their cubbies were going to be. They have made a lot of growth from that first day and we have been working hard to master our Q2 goals.

Language Arts

In reading, we have been working on identifying the story elements (character and setting) in fiction books. Ask your child to show you our gestures for character and setting. You can support this goal by asking your child to identify the character and setting in their favorite story. Heck, you can even ask them to identify the characters/setting in their favorite TV show!

We have also been working on phoneme segmentation (being able to break a word into basic sounds) and nonsense word fluency (sounding out and reading made-up words). Your child will be assessed on these objectives at the end of the quarter with the goal for phoneme segmentation being 20 words a min and the goal for nonsense word fluency being 17 words a minute. You can support mastery of this objective by completing at least one phoneme segmentation activity and one nonsense word fluency activity a week from our reading homework. 

In Letterland this week, we got to know more about Impy Ink (that's the letter I for all you adults who have not been to Letterland) and the sound he makes. In addition, we have been using the 'roller coaster trick' (using our shoulder, elbow, and wrist) to sound out CVC (simple 3 letter words made up of a consonant letter, vowel, and consonant letter). 

Sight Words: come, from

As always, ask your child to show you our gestures for these words. As you know, the amount of sight words your child can read corresponds positively to the books they can read independently. To support this goal, ask your child to name all the sight words they can identify in a toy catalogue. If they name a specific amount (you can set an achievable goal), tell them you will put in a good word with Santa/grandma/grandpa about a special toy they want....just an idea:-) 

In writing, our focus is on creating 'pattern books'. That is, creating books that use the same language pattern (usually consisting of sight words) on each page. This week, we created books using the pattern, "I like to...".

Math

In math this week, we are working with numbers 11-20. Specifically, 

-identifying and correctly writing numbers 11-20

-creating groups that represent numbers 11-20 using our tens frame

For example the number 16 would be XXXXX.          XXXXX

                                                           XXXXX.          X

-decomposing numbers 11-20 into a group of ten and some extra.

For example, using the tens frame above, 16 would be 10 and 6 extra make 16 or 10 and 6 are partners that make 16. 

Homework

I apologize for not sending homework home on Friday. Although our homework doesn't officially start until Monday, I hope it did not cause any inconvenience at home. 

Also, just a quick thank you for everyone who remembers  to send in your child's HOMEWORK BAG each and every Friday. 

The Most Wonderful Volunteers 

I just want to take a moment and thank the wonderful moms who help our class each and every week. They do everything from pulling small groups of kids to help them master various skills, to doing the down and dirty job of organizing/preparing all of our 'paperwork' .

Jessica Clem- thank you for putting our homework together every week. Lord knows it is not an easy job and I am so thankful you come in every week to help. 

Meg Yancey- thank you for helping our kiddos master number recognition, number counting and all things math. Thank you also for volunteering to come in on Pumpkin Day. It literally would not have happened without you.

Stacy Kozlowski- thank you for pulling small groups and helping our kiddos master phoneme segmentation and nonsense word skills. Thank you also for coming in for our Pumkin Day. It literally would not have happened without you.

Whitney Tribble- thank you for ripping out/putting together all of the math pages for the kiddos each and every week. 

Becky Melton- thank you for keeping our parents in the loop by sharing all things PTA.