Newsletter for October 23, 2015

What We Learned This Week

Word Study

We reviewed and assessed our a sounds and patterns: VCe and vowel team (ai) and VC. I'll send these home on Monday. I also introduced nouns. Students should be able to distinguish between common and proper nouns.

Reading Workshop

I introduced fables and folktales. Students worked to identify the moral or lesson in the story. We will continue this and eventually construct our own fables.

I also started our study of inference. Students know they have to cite evidence to support their inferences.

Writing Workshop

Students planned and wrote short first person narratives. We will use these for revision next week where I will encourage students to "show, don't tell," by adding details that create a mental picture for the audience.

Students demonstrating the parts of a friendly letter kinesthetic.

We are anxiously awaiting our pen pals responses! 

Math

Students began their multiplication and division fact fluency with the following strategies: zeroes (zero groups of n), ones (one group of n), and doubles (two group of n). I define multiplication as "efficient addition of same sized groups." I will never say 8 x 3 as "eight times three," but will instead call it "eight groups of three." This subtle difference is very helpful in developing understanding of multiplication.

Students should be able to represent a multiplication fact as a number statement, addition, groups, and arrays. They should be able to represent number statements, addition of same sized groups, groups, and arrays as a multiplication statement.

Science

I showed a short video of the famous Apollo 13 space mission and its "Houston, we have a problem" situation to stress the importance of being able to communicate clearly.

Apollo 13 Clip

To practice this, students took turns designing shapes behind blinds and talking their partners through the design process using only words. The results were interesting.

 

These first two were close, but you can see the miscommunication.

This example and the next show great communication.

It is also interesting to observe students' complexity of shapes they choose to build.

Important Dates and Reminders

I will highlight new and changed dates on subsequent posts in red.

October 26 - Early Dismissal Professional Development 1pm
October 29 - UA Trick or Treat Night
October 29 - Progress Reports Sent Home
October 30 - Halloween Party and Parade (Thank you room parents!)

November 2 - Early Dismissal at 11:05 NO LUNCH SERVICE
November 2 through 4 - Fall Conferences 
You can sign up for Fall Conferences by clicking on this link:http://www.signupgenius.com/go/10c0a4fa5ac2ea64-fall3
November 3 - No School Election Day/Professional Development
November 5 - Picture Retakes
November 9 through 13 - Terra Nova3/InView
November 19 - Thompson Park Tree Trek (Please let me know if you can chaperon.) 
November 25 through 27 - Thanksgiving Break

December 1 through 2 - Ohio English Language Arts Assessment
December 21 through January 1 - Winter Break

January 8 - End of Second Quarter
January 11 - No School Teacher Grading Day
January 18  - No School Martin Luther King Day
January 21 - Conferences, Early Dismissal at 11:05, NO LUNCH SERVICE
January 27 - Early Dismissal Professional Development 1pm

February 1 through 16 - Ohio Wildlife Center donation drive
February 15 - No School Presidents' Day
February 16 - Ohio Wildlife Center Visit

March 2 - Early Dismissal Professional Development 1pm
March 18 - End of Third Quarter
March 21 through 25 - No School Spring Break
March 28 - No School Teacher Grading Day

April 6 - Early Dismissal Professional Development 1pm
April 12 and 13 - Ohio English Language Arts Assessment
April 20 and 21 - Ohio Mathematics Assessment

May 27 - Last Day of School for Students

Newsletter for October 16, 2015

What We Learned This Week

We concluded the first quarter! Students were challenged to come up with specific goals for each key subject area. I will share these with you during conferences. Students were encouraged to write down achievable and specific goals.

I am very pleased with the class' progress in general. However, the class needs to develop focus, perseverance, and engagement. These are great words for home discussion. The majority of questions missed on this week's end of quarter assessments were the result of not reading questions carefully or rushing, rather than not knowing the content.

Word Study
I conducted the Developmental Spelling Assessment, which I will share with you during our upcoming fall conferences. This detailed assessment identifies specific spelling features such as r-controlled vowels, long vowels (VCe), and doubling.

Reading Workshop
We continued to study character change over time and providing evidence. I assessed students' ability to correctly identify the main idea of a short passage and to differentiate between the main idea and supporting details. I also conducted the Developmental Reading Assessment (DRA) on all students who were below or close to our first quarter benchmark to look for growth. I am very pleased with students' progress.

Writing Workshop
Students learned the parts of a friendly letter: heading, greeting, opening, closing, and signature. See if your student can demonstrate this for you. Many students are struggling with convention (primarily indenting, capitalizing the first word in a sentence and proper nouns, and ending punctuation). Their content is generally very good. Students published their pen pal letters and we mailed them to London today.

Math Workshop
I reviewed and assessed fact fluency (addition and subtraction) and all of the numeracy and operations and algebraic equations content we have learned thus far this year.

We started multiplication and division fact fluency on Thursday. I am sending home students' addition and subtraction fact fluency assessments today. If your student correctly answered fewer than 23 in the time allowed, they have not mastered their facts and should practice them nightly. I will offer study strategies during fall conferences. Prior to meeting, students should be using the following strategies, which allow them to focus on an "anchor" number that will support their recall:
- zero more
- one more
- two more
- doubles
- near doubles
- sums to ten
- 7s, 8s, and 9s/build tens

Science
We continued to study biotic and abiotic factors as well as plant and animal interdependence. Students should know that plants produce oxygen and food for animals and animals produce carbon dioxide and nutrients for plants.

Important Dates and Reminders

I will highlight new and changed dates on subsequent posts in red.

October 19 - No School Teacher Grading Day
October 26 - Early Dismissal Professional Development 1pm
October 29 - UA Trick or Treat Night
October 30 - Halloween Party and Parade

November 2 - Early Dismissal at 11:05, NO LUNCH SERVICE
November 2 through 4 - Fall Conferences 
You can sign up for Fall Conferences by clicking on this link:http://www.signupgenius.com/go/10c0a4fa5ac2ea64-fall3
November 3 - No School Election Day/Professional Development
November 5 - Picture Retakes
November 9 through 13 - Terra Nova3/InView
November 19 - Thompson Park Tree Trek (Please let me know if you can chaperon.) 
November 25 through 27 - Thanksgiving Break

December 1 through 2 - Ohio English Language Arts Assessment
December 21 through January 1 - Winter Break

January 8 - End of Second Quarter
January 11 - No School Teacher Grading Day
January 18  - No School Martin Luther King Day
January 21 - Conferences, Early Dismissal at 11:05, NO LUNCH SERVICE
January 27 - Early Dismissal Professional Development 1pm

February 1 through 16 - Ohio Wildlife Center donation drive
February 15 - No School Presidents' Day
February 16 - Ohio Wildlife Center Visit

March 2 - Early Dismissal Professional Development 1pm
March 18 - End of Third Quarter
March 21 through 25 - No School Spring Break
March 28 - No School Teacher Grading Day

April 6 - Early Dismissal Professional Development 1pm
April 12 and 13 - Ohio English Language Arts Assessment
April 20 and 21 - Ohio Mathematics Assessment

May 27 - Last Day of School for Students

Newsletter for October 9, 2015

What We Learned This Week

Word Study
We reviewed and assessed our two most common patterns of closed syllables (short vowel sound - VC/VCC) and long vowel sound - VCe. The assessment contained a, i, o, and u vowel syllables. I introduced our new long a pattern ai (e.g., paint). I encourage students to write both patterns of they aren't sure and assure them that often one will "look right." For example, if a student uses the word "snail" in their oral vocabulary, but isn't confident in their spelling they can try out both of our long a patterns (paint versus pante). Most students will recognize "paint" as the correct spelling.

Reading Workshop
I employed picture books to study how characters change throughout a story and how to support our observations with evidence.

Writing Workshop
Students began drafts of their multi-paragraph pen pal letters. I focus on the concept of a paragraph consisting of a single topic, a challenging concept for many young writers who tend to jump from one theme to the next. Common paragraph topics include family, hobbies and interests, school, and Halloween. I am very pleased with students' content and productivity. We will work on revision and editing next week with a goal of mailing them to Middlesex next Friday.

Math Workshop
Challenging concepts of numeracy and operations were wrapped up and reviewed this week. Identifying missing addends, rewriting number stories as story problems and identifying the number of ones, tens and hundreds in numbers within one-thousand are key concepts that support students' ability to handle more complex multi-step problems. Students are beginning to work on solving two step problems.

Science
I introduced ecosystems, biotic (living) and abiotic (non-living) factors, the energy pyramid and how interdependent biotic and abiotic factors are in an ecosystem.

Important Dates and Reminders

I will highlight new and changed dates on subsequent posts in red.

There were a lot of great scarecrows, but I have to admit I'm a little partial to this one:) I hope to see you tonight!

October 9 - Fall Family Night 
October 16 - End of First Quarter
October 19 - No School Teacher Grading Day
October 25 - Scarecrow Display Contest
October 26 - Early Dismissal Professional Development 1pm
October 29 - UA Trick or Treat Night
October 30 - Halloween Party and Parade

November 2 - Early Dismissal at 11:05, NO LUNCH SERVICE

November 2 through 4 - Fall Conferences 
You can sign up for Fall Conferences by clicking on this link:http://www.signupgenius.com/go/10c0a4fa5ac2ea64-fall3

November 3 - No School Election Day/Professional Development
November 5 - Picture Retakes
November 9 through 13 - Terra Nova3/InView
November 25 through 27 - Thanksgiving Break

December 1 through 2 - Ohio English Language Arts Assessment
December 21 through January 1 - Winter Break

January 8 - End of Second Quarter
January 11 - No School Teacher Grading Day
January 18  - No School Martin Luther King Day
January 21 - Conferences, Early Dismissal at 11:05, NO LUNCH SERVICE
January 27 - Early Dismissal Professional Development 1pm

February 1 through 16 - Ohio Wildlife Center donation drive
February 15 - No School Presidents' Day
February 16 - Ohio Wildlife Center Visit

March 2 - Early Dismissal Professional Development 1pm
March 18 - End of Third Quarter
March 21 through 25 - No School Spring Break
March 28 - No School Teacher Grading Day

April 6 - Early Dismissal Professional Development 1pm
April 12 and 13 - Ohio English Language Arts Assessment
April 20 and 21 - Ohio Mathematics Assessment

May 27 - Last Day of School for Students