Welcome to David and his family! They joined us early this week and we are excited to have them as members of our Room 102 Community :)
Students are earning gems and droplets left, right and centre! They are doing amazing things to be kind and caring members of our community; I am very proud of them :) In their Yellow Home Notes folders, students brought home their “Four Agreements” booklet that they worked on during the first two weeks of school. Please review the 4 agreements with your child and return the booklet back to school. Thanks!
We’ve been talking a lot about ‘making mental images’ (or visualizing) as a comprehension strategy when we’re reading, talking and sharing. As an activity, students laid down on the carpet with their eyes closed and listened to the story “Fresh Fall Leaves” and made mental images of the text. When you come to the BBQ next week, be sure to check out their images that are now hanging in the halls!
Click here to learn more about Making Mental Images: Reading Rockets
After listening to “Fall Changes” we created an anchor chart of ‘fall words’; students then used this list of words to create fall poems! Check them out in the hall :) Learning goals for this activity: to proofread their own printing and check for correct spelling (using our shared reading text).
The 100 Most Frequently Used Words list was introduced this week, as students were asked to reflect on their first few weeks at school and write a sentence about “school fun”. Many students used the words “I”, “like”, and “play” from the list and they even used our posted, daily schedule to check spelling for words like “recess”, “music” and “gym”. All other words were sounded out by students independently. We’ve bound our “School Fun” pages and created our first class book!
We’ve started our first Chapter Book read aloud – Frindle! Ask your son or daughter about the main character, Nick.
We’re still using various strategies to show numbers, this week #s 9-14. On day 10, we realized that 10 cubes could be traded in for 1 rod with our base ten blocks, and now it’s much easier and faster to double check and count our numbers. For example, on day 14, if we used 14 cubes we would have to count “1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14”; not only does that take a long time, but there’s a good chance that we might make a mistake! But, if we used 1 rod and 4 cubes we would count “10, 11, 12, 13, 14”; much fast and we’re less likely to make a mistake. Have your son or daughter show you how to use base tens and play this game! Base Ten Blocks: Interactive Game
We’re continuing to use snap cubes to create trains and then number sentences; make a train of 14 cubes and then break it apart to show the groups, like 5+5+4=14. Next week, we’ll get into number lines. Give your son or daughter a head start by using this interactive lesson/game online! We use Number Lines to show how we compose #s
We had our first ‘swim day’ with a visit from Coach Emily and Coach Adina this week! (Don’t worry, there was no swimming!) Emily and Adina talked to the students about the routines, the expectations and rules of the swim program. Everyone needs to bring a suit, a towel and a labeled bag. If they’d like, they can bring water shoes/sandals and goggles. No need to send life jackets or toys, the pool supplies them. Emily and Adina will instruct the students in the shallow end. throughout the year, THEY will hold ‘deep end tests’ to see if students are ready to swim in the deep end :) Our first Swim day is the 30th, so please be ready!!
On Monday afternoon, we had a special visit from Rebecca (mom to Joshua in SK and Eva in 2) and learned all about Rosh Hoshanah and Yom Kipur. She read “Talia and The Rude Vegetables” to us and we made our own Shofars – now we can use the Shofars to call our friends and family when we want to celebrate something too!
In our Room 108 Classroom Community, we foster an engaging, respectful and caring environment. I aim to balance a consistent program with flexible responsiveness to students' individual needs.