Friday, October 14, 2016

News from Room 117 for October 10th to October 14th

Hello Families,
Sadly, I still can't figure out why I'm now unable to post these fabulous pictures to our blog but I'm not giving up.  At a future date once this is resolved, the blog will just have to be pictures and nothing else:)  Until then, I'm asking the children to think of good questions that you could ask them about their learning this week.  Enjoy!

Great Questions to Ask Your Child:
What did you see this morning outside of your classroom window?
What are phonemes?
What are you doing with voting?
Who are you voting for next week?  Grace?  Mrs. McNeal?  Squid?  Duck?
What are you doing in math workshop?
What is writers workshop?
What is readers workshop?
What are you doing during free exploration?
What are you doing in writers workshop?
What is math workshop?
What are you doing in Flexible Friday?
What are you doing in specials?
What is your favorite thing in school?
What are you doing during recess?


Highlights from our Week:
Word Study:  We are continuing to work on the digraphs of /sh/, /ch/ and /th/ 
                     as a class.  We've also just completed our first independent 
                     study of a word feature based upon each child's need.  The test
                     was given today and recorded on Progress Book.
                    We also learned about phonemes and how knowing them can help
                    us to be stronger readers and writers.
Writer's Workshop:  We are continuing our study of writing small moment 
                              stories (aka personal narratives) and this week we learned
                             why and how writers use transition words ("story glue"), 
                             ellipses, and sound effects.  
Social Studies:  Voting has been the big topic this week.  After reading several
                       fun stories about characters who wanted to be president, the
                      children created campaign posters and bumper stickers por-
                      traying their choice for president.  Next week, we will vote!
Readers Workshop:  We learned that we have "reading toolboxes" in our brains
                              and that that toolbox needs to be filled with tools to help
                              us when we come to those tricky words.  Two of these
                             tools are to look at the picture and to get our mouths ready
                             for the first sound(s).  We also learned that a strong reader
                            keeps their eyes in the book and not out of the book because
                            the tricky word isn't written in the sky or on the listener's 
                            (you) forehead:)
Math Workshop:  We are still working on rich problems that help us to identify
                          and represent related addition and subtraction equations with
                          objects (linking cubes) and equations.  We call these fact 
                          families and we will continue to explore them next week.






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