Week of September 26th

Happy Monday!

In math this week we will be working on the following skills:

• Turn Around Facts
• Addition Strategies That Use Doubles Facts
• Subtraction from Addition
• Fact Families
  

Please use the fact family triangles that your child will bring home this week as flashcards that you can use with your child or they can use independently. Please also remember that there are numerous sites linked on the side of my blog that provide additional resources for math facts/skills practice.

Here are the skills we are continuing to review in language arts:

• Characters
• Main Idea and Details
• Sentences
• Statements and Questions
• Commands and Exclamations
• Parts of a sentence
  

We are also talking this week about making predictions when we read. This is a great skill/strategy that you can do with your kids at home.

Please remember to send back the manilla envelope with your child's name on it with the book inside every Friday. I will give them a new book each Monday (or when I received the previous book).

The kids had their first try at Reader’s Theatre in class last week! Readers Theater is an integrated approach for involving students in reading, writing, listening, and speaking activities. It involves children in….

• sharing literature,
• reading aloud,
• performing with a purpose, and
• working collaboratively
  

Readers Theater helps to….

• develop fluency through repeated exposure to text.
• increase comprehension.
• integrate reading, writing, speaking, and listening in an authentic context.
• engage students.
• increase reading motivation.
• create confidence and improve the self-image of students.
• provide a real purpose for reading.
• provide opportunities for cooperative learning.
  

Last week in Science we did an experiment called: Where Did the Water Go? In the previous lesson, the students observed an ice cube as it changed from a solid to a liquid. In this lesson, the students observed and discussed how water evaporates into the air as it changes from a liquid to a gas. This lesson helped to reinforce that cycles are an integral part of science. These observations align with that of the water cycle. In short, the students had a small cup of room temperature water, and a small cup of warm water. They covered each small cup with a larger cup and watched as condensation formed on the cup covering the smaller cup containing the warm water. It was amazing to watch. The kids were glued to the cups waiting for the “change” to occur. As they started to visibly notice changes, they couldn’t contain their excitement. They discussed what they saw and also drew and wrote observations in their science journal. I did add some pictures to the Shutterfly site of this experiment. This week we will be talking about mixing and separating solids.

In Writing Workshop, we are continuing our study of Small Moment Personal Narratives. Last week we continued our work with our partners and finding out if our stories were small moments or not. This week we are working hard to make our words match our pictures. Many of the kids have been experimenting with adding dialogue to their stories. This is a lot of fun!

Current Events this week:

Tuesday: JC and Lauren

Wednesday: Michael and Morgan

Thursday: Sabrina and Tristan

Friday: Ava and Sarah

**Your child will be bringing home 2 Current Event Calendars this month. One will stay in their folder and the other one you can take and hang it wherever you need to in order to remember! Due to some "scheduling conflicts" on Fridays in October, your child may have a different day of the week than last month. Please remember this is part of your child's homework grade. They LOVE getting up and sharing with their friends.

In Technology this week, your child will be getting a North American Landmark to research. This will be a project we are beginning. Stay tuned for more details.