This week is parent/teacher conferences. I look forward to seeing you at your child's conference. If, for any reason, you cannot make your scheduled conference time (or have forgotten your time) please contact me as soon as possible. Report cards will be going home on Wednesday.
Reading : We're continuing right ahead with our non-fiction unit of study. The students love sharing facts that they've learned from books they've read. This week, we'll learn specifically about cutaways, close-ups, and maps.
Writing : We've taken a small detour from our current unit of study in writing workshop to learn more specifically about descriptive writing. Each student has a different bobbing-head turtle from Mexico and is writing a detailed description of his/her turtle. Our goal is to match pictures of the turtles to each of the writing pieces.
Later in the week, we'll get right back on track with our current unit of study, making writing easy to read. We're almost done with this unit and will be publishing some 'easy to read' writing pieces in the next couple of weeks.
Word Study : I haven't written about word study in a while, but we've been doing a lot of work learning about long vowel patterns. At this point, I'm not expecting students to be using perfect spelling, but I am expecting them to use spelling patterns that make sense. (For example, if they are writing the work 'snake,' I would expect them to write a spelling pattern that had the long a sound, -ai, -ay, -a_e.)
This week, we'll be focusing on compound words (pancake, baseball, etc). If you notice any, point them out to your child!
Math : This week, we'll wrap up unit 6, which is a unit that focuses on math facts. Please, please, please continuing practicing math facts at home. Fact triangles are great for this. By now, I expect students to have a very firm grasp on +0, +1, and complements of 10 math facts.
Social Studies : This week, we're going to start talking a lot about the cultures and heritages that make up the students and families in 1-Bu. I look forward to the students sharing the paper dolls they made.
Here are some pictures from yoga last Friday: