Dear Room 2
Families,
October 23,
2015
Happy Fall! The month of September flew by
here in our classroom and October seems to be moving at a similar pace! The
children have been doing such wonderful work in class. I’m excited to share
some of their learning with you today.
Global Cardboard Challenge
Many thanks to everyone who sent in
supplies for Happy Hollow’s “Global Cardboard Challenge.” The kids had an
awesome day creating castles, houses, tree houses, computers, soccer fields and
more! Kids worked cooperatively and collaborated to share ideas, build together
and solve problems during the planning and construction phases of the project. They
were so proud of their creations!
Language Arts
During Writer’s Workshop, children have
made weekly journal entries focusing on weekend activities. They’ve been
concentrating on beginning each sentence with an uppercase letter, using spaces
between words, and using appropriate punctuation at the end of each sentence.
They’ve practiced applying what they’ve learned in our Open Court Phonics
(“Word Work”) lessons to stretch out and sound out words as best as they can.
Children will soon be using their Writer’s Workshop folders 2-3 times a week.
During these writing sessions, we’ll use the phrase, “When you think you’re
done, you’ve just begun.” This helps children to remember to go back to add
more to the words, more detail to the picture, or to start a new piece of
writing when they’re sure they’ve produced their best effort. We will be focusing
on writing ”Small Moments” or personal narratives, stretching out stories from
our lives over several pages and incorporating detail in our words and our
pictures. Every chld is working hard to
become an independent writer, sounding out words to the best of his/her
ability. Children are eager to share their work with their classmates at the
end of each writing session. They really enjoy the positive feedback from their
peers and are inspired by each other’s writing!
This week, children worked on a book
titled, “Room 2 Makes Good Choices.” This book came out of our numerous Open
Circle class discussions about making good choices at home and in school and
how this helps us become better students, better friends, better people. Kids
worked in teams of 2 or 3 and brainstormed examples of making good choices in
their everyday lives. Kids then shared their ideas with each other and this
became the springboard for our book. Each child decorated a letter or number in
the phrase, “Room 2 Makes Good Choices.”
These letters and the phrase they create will hang in the classroom as a
constant reminder of our classroom motto or slogan, something we try to live up
to throughout our day. It’s a simple but powerful phrase which inspires us to
invite friends to join in a game on the playground, to help a friend who may be
sad, to hold the door open for others, to listen and focus at meeting time and
to walk quietly and respectfully in the hallway. I’m always amazed at the wonderful,
thoughtful conversations that we have as members of this classroom community. I
know you’d be bursting with pride if you could hear them, too, because everyone
has something to share and every voice counts.
In Reading Workshop, we’ve discussed
reading strategies that help us when we get to unknown words in a text. Ask
your child about our Beanie Baby Reading Strategy Buddies! We’ve practiced
using the first 2 strategies and will learn about the rest in the weeks ahead.
- Eagle Eye tells us to look at the picture for a
clue.
- Lips the Fish tells us to get our mouth ready for
the first sound in the word.
- Stretchy Snake tells us to stretch out the word
slowly and then blend the sounds together.
- Chunky Monkey tells us to look for chunks that we
know in the word.
- Skippy the Frog tells us to skip the tricky word and
read on, then come back and try it again.
- Tryin’ Lion tells us to try saying the vowel a
different way.
- Pattern Penguin tells us to use the pattern in a
story to help us figure out an unknown word.
Children have been doing a wonderful job
with these strategies while reading from their book bags during Reader’s
Workshop. Children have a selection of books at their reading level and have
time each day to practice reading independently. Periodically, your child will
bring a book home from his/her book bag to share with you. We encourage you to
use these reading strategies to empower your child to read independently as
he/she continues along his/her reading journey.
Fall Activities
We’ve read some
great books about fall these past few weeks including,..
Fall Is Here~ I
Love It! by Elaine Good
Fletcher and
the Falling Leaves by
Julia Rawlinson
Let It Fall! by Maryanne Cocca-Leffler
Leaf Man by Lois Ehler
Fall Leaves by Loretta Holland
Each child created
a page about his/her favorite fall activity during Writer’s Workshop. We’ve also read some wonderful poetry about
fall. Children have practiced reading the poems and have illustrated them for
their poetry/song notebooks. Ask your child about our Friday Campfire
Sing-Alongs!
Math
We’ve been focusing on a wide range of
math activities during the past month. We’ve been working on solving story
problems (word problems), showing our thinking and problem solving using cubes.
We’ve focused on simple addition and subtraction problems this past week. You
can easily make up addition or subtraction problems for your child to work on
at home. Here are a few examples:
·
I
picked 7 orange pumpkins. My friend picked 8 green pumpkins. How many pumpkins
did we pick altogether? 7+8=?
·
I had
12 balloons. Seven of them popped. How many are left? 12-7=5
Many children need
practice with the transitions between addition and subtraction, so the more you
can support your child at home, the better. For an added challenge, increase
the numbers or the complexity of the problem by using greater numbers or increasing
the number of addends.
Challenge Problems (we will be learning
more about solving these types of problems next month):
·
Two rabbits
were sitting on the grass. Some more rabbits hopped there. Then there were five
rabbits. How many rabbits hopped over to the first two? 2+?+5
·
Five
apples were on the table. I ate some apples There were three apples left. How
many apples did I eat? 5-?=3
·
Five
fish are in my fishbowl. Three are red
and the rest are blue. How many fish are blue? 3+?=5, 5-3=?
·
Lucy
has 2 apples. Julie has 5 apples. How many more apples does Julie have than
Lucy?
·
Lucy
has 2 apples Julie has 5 apples. How many fewer apples does Lucy have than
Julie? 2+?=5, 5-2=?
Other ideas to reinforce your child’s math
skills at home include practicing counting forward and backward by 1’s,
starting at different numbers. You can also help your child practice counting
forward by 2’s, 5’s, and 10’s. In order to make practicing a bit more fun, you
may want to try the following ideas:
·
Challenge
your child to do jumping jacks while you both count by 5’s to 100.
·
Challenge
your child to hop on one foot while you count by 10’s to 100.
·
Challenge
your child to brush his/her teeth while YOU count backwards from 62 (or any
other number).
·
Challenge
your child to count by 2’s as he/she climbs the stairs. The next night you can
count by 2’s starting at a different number.
Remember to join
in whenever you have the time or the energy! Your child can count for you and
then you can count for your child. Hearing the counts can be just as helpful as
saying the counts. It provides your child with needed exposure and awareness of
numbers. It may be helpful to
concentrate on one kind of counting each week, for example, counting by 5’s, so
that your child can fully establish one pattern before moving on to another
one.
Open Circle:
We’ve spent time
this past week talking about Open Circle Rules. The children came up with a
list of rules to ensure a positive Open Circle setting:
1. Be a good listener
2. Raise your hand when you have something to
say.
3. Be kind and respectful.
4. One person talks at a time.
We’ve also focused
on nonnegotiable school rules which provide us with a safe learning
environment. These rules include:
1. Walk in the hallway.
2. Include others.
3. Use your words to solve problems.
4. Be safe.
5. Be respectful of people and property.
We have a
wonderful group of thinkers and problem solvers; it’s a pleasure to share
conversations with these children and to watch them work together as a
classroom community!
Fifth Grade Buddies
Children met their fifth grade buddies in
Ms. Candini’s class today and enjoyed spending time getting to know them! First
and fifth graders interviewed one another to find out a little bit about each
other and were excited to make connections. We’ll try to meet with our buddies
once or twice a month. We look forward to taking part in a variety of
activities together. Other years, our classes got together to read books, write
stories, have a “Games Day,” play kickball and soccer, and create snowmen and
snow forts outside. We raised money to buy animals for those in need as part of
The Heiffer Project, and we also raised money for people living on the island
of Grenada, devastated by Hurricane Ivan many years ago.. We are all looking
forward to working on some wonderful projects together in the months to come
I will be out of the classroom on Monday and
Tuesday, October 26th and 27th. I’m going to Rochester, New York to be with
my mom who turns 90 on Tuesday. She lives alone so I thought some good
mother-daughter time would be a lovely way to celebrate! Children will have Ms.
Keyes as their substitute teacher. They know her well and love the time she has
spent in our classroom during Writer’s Workshop, Math Stations, and Reader’s
Workshop. I will be back on Wednesday.
Thank you all for your continued support in
your child’s education. Please let us know if you have any questions at
508-358-2120 or at lise_weig@wayland.k12.ma.us.
Take care and enjoy the weekend ahead,
Lise Weig J
