Warm Weather and Hands-On Learning!

 Learning highlights from the week:

• Math-  1st Grade math students started a new mini unit on shapes.  Students will be describing, identifying and comparing attributes of 2D shapes as well as composing and decomposing 2D shapes. Second Graders continue their work with story problems.  Their focus is using an efficient strategy to accurately solve both addition and subtraction problems.  Students are using Counting on and Counting back strategies as well as number lines and some are even breaking apart 10’s and 1’s to add.  

• Literacy- Students are working on a number of different reading skills such as words ending in -ck and -ng, sounding out words with a short o sound, and open and closed syllables.  Some students have started working in book clubs where the focus will be on comprehension strategies.  

•  Writing- Students have begun stories with a beginning, middle and an ending.  These stories about our lives and things we do. 

Mindfulness- We are continuing with our school theme for the month, courage.  Mr. Alberghini came to the All School Morning Meeting today to tell us an amazing story about courage.  Mr. Alberghini is an amazing storyteller and everyone enjoyed his tale.

 

Science Adventures !

 Learning highlights from the week:

• Math- Between having no school on Monday and an early release on Wednesday, our afternoon math time this week was limited.  First Graders worked with subtraction playing Roll and Record and solving subtraction word problems.  Second graders began discussing strategies for solving Enough for the Class problems and puzzled through Try-A-Tiles.  I have a description of Try-A-Tiles below  

• Literacy- Wow, literacy stations are going so well.  Students are engaged, working hard and doing some great reading.  I have started book clubs with a few students.  During these book clubs we will work on comprehension skills and look at author’s craft.  Other students are working on skills such as blending words together, recognizing and sounding out digraphs, beginning and ending blends and automaticity of all short vowel sounds. 

•  Writing- This week we worked on sentence structure and letter formation. 

• Science- Our rocks and minerals unit is shifting into landforms and erosion. This week students built a model of a mountain and tested how rain moves down the mountain into rivers and streams. We learned that eventually that water ends up in an ocean. 

• Mindfulness- We have been talking a lot about the parts of the brain, especially the amygdala and the prefrontal cortex or the PFC.  We have also been talking about courage and what it means to be courageous.

 

Friday Letters, Applesauce and More Fall Fun!

 

On Friday our learners wrote their first Friday Letters to their families. They come home in a black composition book.   These letters tell a little snippet about our week.  They are a great way for families to learn more about our week and watch our learners progress as writers throughout the year.  Sometimes our Friday Letters might be a bit tough to read. If you can't read your child's letter, just ask them to tell you about their week.  Please write a note back to them, they love to read your letters! Help your learner remember to return the notebook by next Friday so they can write back to you.

 Learning highlights from the week:

• Math- In a change of plans, second graders ended up continuing their work on number strings for another week.   We wanted to make sure students really understood the concepts of number strings before we moved on.  This week we focused on Partners to 20.  

For example:  8 + 3 + 4 + 8 + 7 = 

(8+8)   (3+7)

                                       16 + 10 + 4 =

  (16+4) + 10

    20 + 10 = 30

            Work on “Enough for the Class” problems will begin next week.

First graders continued to work on solving addition and subtraction problems using equations and number formation.  Practicing number writing is a great activity to do at home and really helps support school learning.

• Reading- Our Reading Workshop launched in earnest on Monday.  Students have 4 stations they work through; Read to Self, Word Work, Lalilo and Work with Mrs. Hackett or Mrs. Molla..  While working with a teacher, students are engaged in activities designed to build their reading skills.  These activities include orthographic mapping, word chains, phonemic awareness, as well as word building and reading decodable texts.  I am linking some informational videos on some of these skills below.   

• Writing-We have been learning about what makes a sentence.  We have discussed that a sentence needs a capital letter at the beginning; a period, exclamation point or question mark at the end and it has to be a complete thought.  We will continue this work next week.

Building strong work habits and time management:  These topics continued this week..  Completing work in a given time frame can be a real challenge for many first and second graders.  We have begun using visual timers to help us gauge work time more effectively.