The last day before winter break...in pictures

Holiday math centers....

Identifying and sorting yummy foods into 2d and 3d shapes

Using one-to-one correspondence to count the pieces of candy on gingerbread houses.

Determining the number of gingerbread men by adding.

Using numbered/colored cards to decorate gingerbread men. Then graphing the number of colored dots we had on the gingerbread men to determine what color we used the most/less. 

And in the fine motor skills department...

We practiced our fine motor skills by cutting out tricky antlers and turning ourselves into.....

                                                               Reindeer!!!

Daily 5 Reading Centers....

We used holiday candles to spell our sight words

We made presents and wrote about their color, size, and texture. These were in addition to our usually centers, listen to reading, I touches, read to self, and computers:-)

And last, but not least, our Book Buddies visited us and we read directions to make 'Reindeer Chow'.

Important Note: Daily folders did not go home today, however please check your child's backpack as their quarter 2 report card is in there.

Have a safe and happy holiday! See you in the New Year.

Just a quick update...

We have been busy wrapping up quarter 2 objectives and completing assessments to determine the kiddos' growth over these past 9 weeks. With that in mind, I will keep this week's update brief.

Math

We have ended our unit on numbers in the teens and have started to explore 2d (square, circle, rectangle, triangle, hexagon) and 3d shapes (sphere, cylinder, cube, cone). Encourage your child to identify and describe these shapes in their environment to help support our objectives at home. Even more, have your kiddo take a picture (with your cell phone) of any of the shapes they see and email it to me. I will print out the picture and add it to our 'Shapes All Around Us' poster! Happy shape hunting....

Items Needed

For our holiday crafts

-12 clear medium sized ornaments

-12 clear medium sized ornaments

-1 bag of fake snow

Need items by 12/16

More items needed

For our unit on 2d and 3d shapes

-1 bag of round cheese balls (sphere)

-1 bag of large marshmallows (cylinder)

-1 bag of Hershey Kisses (cone)

-1 bag of cubed caramels (cube)

-1 bag of Doritos (triangle)

-1 bag of Wheat Thins (square)

-1 box of Cheerios (circle)

-1 box of Graham Crackers (rectangle)

Need by 12/16

Coming up in Quarter 3

-No More Rest Time

That's right! After track out, there will be no more rest time. So, you can keep your child's rest towel at home. 

-Mystery Reader

Do you want to volunteer in your child's classroom, but have not had the opportunity due to work, school, and/or other obligations? Well, 'Mystery Reader' is just for you. You can surprise your child by coming in to read a favorite a book to our class during our snack time. Stay tuned for more details....

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. 

                

What's Going On in Room 210?

Well, I'm glad you asked. Like I said in our last post, we are back on track and diving in head first to quarter 2.

Language Arts

In reading this week our focus is on using sights words to read texts. Sight words, or high frequency words are words that are most commonly found in texts. As many of you were able to see during our conferences, it is important that the kids can name most of the sight words on the back of our homework, in order to master the goal of reading on a level C by the end of this quarter. 

In writing, our focus has been thinking and writing like a scientist. Last week, we went on a nature walk. Using items each kiddo collected, the kids drew and wrote about each item. We focused on

-naming the object "This is a leaf"

-sharing an attribute about the object (color, shape, size, texture) "It is red"

-using a capital letter to begin each sentence

As with writing last quarter, we also continue to work on using the word wall to spell sight words, using spaces between each word, and using end punctuation.

Sight Words: said, we, in

You can support the mastery of these objectives at home by having your child identify any sight words they see in the world around them. Want to really 'ramp up' their motivation? Offer them a penny (or piece of candy) for every sight word they can correctly identify. 

Math

In math this week, we have been focusing on:

-identifying +1 (one more) and -1 (one less) patterns in numbers

Students have been creating groups that represent the numbers 1-10. The focus has been on getting them to see the pattern that each successive number is +1 more than the next number. For example, 2 is one more than 1, 3 is one more than 2, 4 is one more than 3 (and so on and so forth). Or, that 1 is one less than 2, 2 is one less than 3, 3 is one less than 4 (and so on and so forth).

-comparing numerals

In quarter 1, we focused on comparing groups of numbers. That is, a group of 3 birds vs a group of 5 birds. We used the words more, less, or equal to compare the groups of birds. In quarter 2, we are comparing just the numerals. For example, which is more 7 or 5? You can support your child at home by asking them to compare numbers found at your home (use the numbers on the oven clock, numbers in your address, numbers on a price tag) and ask them which one of these numbers is More? Less? Equal? Play the card game (you can use UNO cards that just have the number, but it is not necessary) "War", where each player outs down a card and whoever has more gets both cards.

Homework

You may have noticed that the reading homework has changed for this quarter. Again, the activities listed are specific to your child's needs, with a book that is also suited to your child's reading level. I have had some parents share that their child completes the 'packet' of homework in one night, which is fine. However, I do ask that one reading activity be completed each night. The reading activities listed are goals that your child will be assessed on at the end of the quarter. They are:

-first sound fluency (if applicable)

-reading behaviors (if applicable)

-95% mastery of a level C book

-nonsense word fluency (being able to sound out and say nonsense words)

-phoneme segmentation fluency (being able to break up words into individual sounds)

FYI....

*I will be adding a new website/activity choice for your child to practice their sight words.

www.spellingcity.com

Click on 

-find a list 

-Type in my name (Shannon McGarry)

-Click on my name (it is listed under Lincoln Heights Elementary)

-Click on quarter 1 or quarter 2 sight words

-Click on games. 

-choose any of the following games (spelling test me, hang mouse, spelling teach me, missing letter, or audio word matching. I would start with audio word matching) 

Wallah! Your child has fun and gets to practice their sight word mastery! 

And We're Back!

And we're back! The first week of quarter 2 has gone smoothly with the kiddos having all the routines and procedures that were a large part of quarter 1, already under their belt. With that confidence in mind, we are 'kicking it up a notch' and diving into our Daily 5 reading structure. For those of you who didn't read my earlier post, they are:

-Read to self/read to someone

-Listen to reading

-Word work

-Write about reading

-Guided reading 

As I have told the kiddos, all of these centers help them become better readers. In fact, we took a poll today and the kids said they felt smarter after going to their Daily 5 centers. With excitement like that, you can't not help love the little ones ;-) 

Report Cards

Report cards will be going home on Friday. If we have already met for a parent/teacher conference, I have already shared with you if your child is on grade level (level 3) in reading, writing, and math. I have also shared if there are any areas your child needs to work on. Your child's report card should be reflective of what I shared during our conference. Please do not hesitate to call or email should you have any questions or concerns. 

*NOTE: Please excuse any punctuation/formatting errors in the 'comment' section of the report cards. The new report card program did not reflect the comments as the bullet points that I had initially written.