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.