Last week, we celebrated the end of our first writing unit by having a publishing party. The students shared their favorite pages of their writing, and then read their stories to small groups. I posted a few pictures of our publishing party at the end of this post.
Here is what's going on in the classroom:
Reading : Last week, we talked about the three main ways to get your mind ready for a book - looking at the cover (the title, author, and picture), reading the blurb on the back cover, and going on a book walk. Please encourage your child to get his/her mind ready for a book before reading at home. This will aide in his/her understanding of the book.
This week, we're going to start discussing decoding strategies for the students to use when they get stuck on a tricky word.
Writing : We'll be embarking on a new writing unit this week. This unit is called Small Moments, and it is aimed at getting students to focus in on one, small part of their day and write in detail about that part.
Math : We're going to wrap up unit 2 this week by discussing number stories and number models. Last week, we spoke about counting pennies and nickels. Please continue practicing counting various combinations of pennies and nickels at home. If your child is weak at skip counting by 5s, this is another thing that you could work on at home.
Social Studies : Last week, the students familiarized themselves with the atlases that we are going to be using over the course of this year. This week, we're going to talk about neighborhoods and identifying various parts of a neighborhood on a map.
Odds and Ends : The students have been eating up books written by Mo Willems and Kevin Henkes. If you're looking for some good books to take out of the library, those two authors are sure to be a hit.
Looking Ahead : We will celebrate Halloween next Monday, October 31st, in the afternoon. Please send your child to school that morning dressed in his/her regular clothes. If your child will be staying at school during lunch, you may pack his/her costume in his/her backpack. The Halloween Parade will be at 1:10pm. Following that, the students will come back to the classroom for a Halloween party.
Here are some pictures from our publishing party last week :