Farm Fun!!

Here are some pictures of today's field trip to Heyser Farm!! 

We are authors!!

Hello parents!!  Last week in reading and writing we identified the beginning, middle, and end of stories. We read a lot this week!  Some highlights were, The Secret Birthday Message, The Wind Blew, and One Day, One World.   We also read books about wind and the seasons in science! 

In writing, we wrote our own books called My Day.  We worked on a page each day, and we are proud to say that we are officially authors.  Our first book is a success!    

 In math we continued to work in our math zones while I worked with small groups to practice number concepts and counting.  The students are getting really good at subitizing, or knowing how many there are without even counting.  Their number sense is growing as well, as they are starting to recognize greater and less, and ways to make numbers in different ways.  

We had Andres' dad come Wednesday to be the mystery reader!!  Also Wednesday the class had their first substitute teacher. I got a great report from the sub and I'm proud of everyone for being respectful and responsible while I was at a curriculum study meeting. 

In science we are studying the seasons!! We also did a fun experiment with wind on Friday. Students made a hypothesis about what items would move in front of the fan. Then we tested 20 classroom objects. The students were really thinking like scientists today!  You can try this experiment at home too.  All you need is a fan and some heavy and light objects.  

Please let me know if you can volunteer in our classroom. I'd love for you to come either as a mystery reader for 15-30 minutes, or as a classroom volunteer if you can stay for an hour or so. The cafeteria and recess para educators also love volunteers too!!  I just had to snap this picture of Thomas' dad, who volunteered last week.  Everyone wanted him to read to them! 

We are gearing up for a fun class party on October 30th!! A sign up sheet came home today if you would like to sign up to bring decorations, food, drinks, or paper products. We could also use volunteers starting around 1:30 to help with decorating, helping children change into costumes, and running activities or games after the costume parade. 

Thanks for all of your support! 

Fire Safety Week!!

Last week was Fire Safety Week!  We read books this week all about firefighters and staying safe around fire.  On Thursday, firefighters came to our school and showed us all of their tools in the firetruck and what they have to wear to fight fires. It was a fun surprise for the kids!

We also had a bus evacuation drill on Thursday.  We all got to go on a bus and meet a bus driver, and hear about how to safely exit a bus in an emergency.  In writing we continued to work in our weekend journals and wrote lists.  We are working on stretching out the sounds in our words to write a beginning, middle and end sound for each word.  The words of the week were to and the this week, and we practiced those everyday!  This week in math we started have new math centers to continue building our number sense.  Some of our favorites are playing grab and count, roll and count, and using the Promethean Board and computers during math zones.  We finished up learning about U.S. Symbols this week and talked a lot about leaders this week.  We identified leaders in our families, school, community and country.  Juniper was a great star of the week!  She shared some toys she made, pictures of her family, and made a great poster.  She also brought in a favorite book that I read to the class. We had two mystery readers this week.  Thomas' grandma from Seattle came and Christopher's Tia also came to read to us.  

Monday is Open House!  If you have some time between 9 and 12 to stop by, we would love to show you around our classroom!   Please send back library books, book buddy bags, and homework tomorrow.  If you haven't sent the field trip permission slip and money, please try to send that in this week!  There is no school Friday!  

Our first field trip is coming up at the end of the month.  We will be visiting Heyser Farms in Colesville, MD.  It's a local farm that produces many things, including apple cider.  We will get to observe the process of making apple cider from start to finish, and we will even get to take home a sample!  Please send field trip permission slips in with cash or check.  We have space for one parent volunteer to come with us on the bus.  Please let me know if you are interested!  

This week we read informational books about Fall and U.S. Symbols in whole group reading. In guided reading we worked in small groups to learn reading strategies and practiced letters and sight words. Some groups made "cut up sentences" with a familiar part of the book. As beginning readers, your child will use picture clues, sight words, and familiar language patterns to help them read.  We have new centers, including a play-doh sight word center.  Thanks to Linus' mom for making homemade play-doh this month!  

In writing, we took a huge step forward developmentally.  Up until now, we drew pictures and added labels to them. This week, we wrote lists! We wrote letters together to make words and drew our pictures last.  We wrote a grocery list, a list of colors, and a list of toys.  One day, we went to the computer lab and made a list of animals using the program Kidspiration.  It was really fun!  In math, we continue to count and represent numbers in different ways.  We can show a number with words, tallies, a picture, a domino, on a ten frame, on a die, with fingers, or just a numeral.  We only have six or seven children left to bring home the counting jar, so it's almost your turn if you haven't gotten it yet!  Here's what Sonora brought one day to count!! 

We had a fun and educational visit from Thomas' dad this week.  He came as the mystery reader and taught us all about oviparous animals.  

Exciting news!  We have five members of the shoe tying club!  If your child is still working on learning this skill, don't worry!  We will add more children to the shoe tying club next month.  

The October sign up for volunteers and mystery readers will be sent to you this evening!