I will be out of the classroom, attending workshops, on Tuesday and Friday. If there are any changes to your child's dismissal/lunch routine on those days, you must send a note to school with your child so that the sub is aware.
Last Friday, Mrs. Gant's second grade class came to our room to share their most recently published writing pieces. 1-Bu students were able to gather many tips and pointers from reading and listening to the second graders' work.
Reading : Two important papers went into the reading section of your child's binder last week - a sheet going over the hand signals we do for short vowel sounds and the first edition of 1-Bu Reading News. Please look over these carefully. 1-Bu Reading News summarizes what we've done so far in reading this year.
This week, we'll spend some time talking about fluency. Developing students' fluency is a big key towards better understanding texts.
Phonics/Word Study : We've gone over all of the letters of the alphabet! Now we'll move our focus to studying word families and letter patterns even more.
Writing : If you were at your child's conference, you were able to get a preview of the piece he or she has chosen to publish. The students still need to do a little more work before these pieces are published, however, and that is what we'll be doing this week.
We'll also be starting our next writing unit. The 'How-To' writing unit is a fun one for the students. In this unit, the students think of something that they are an expert at, and use writing to teach others 'how-to' do that task. You can help support this unit at home by talking to your child about what things he or she is an expert at. (Perhaps tying shoelaces, making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, or playing a certain game.)
Math : This week we'll be wrapping up unit 3 and starting unit 4. The focus of unit 4 is measurement. As you'll see in the Family Letter that goes home this week, the students will be investigating many kinds of measurement, from temperature and time, to standard and non-standard units of measure.
Science : Science fell by the wayside during the shortened days last week, so we're going to launch our space unit this week instead. We'll start off by discussing night and day, and then move on to talking about the planets in our solar system.
Odds and Ends : Please, please, please make sure that your child is dressed appropriately for outdoor recess. Children without proper outdoor gear will not be permitted to go outside for outdoor recess.
Have a great week!