Back at it!

As much as I love snow days, it was so nice to have a full week of school and routine!

A look at our learning this week...

Fundations: we learned about the silent e at the end of words this week.  We learned that "e can be bossy and tells the first vowel to say it's name."  

Ask your child to read a few silent e words to you:

(you may have to remind them about the silent e at first, as this is a new concept)

made

cake

came

date

etc.

Shared Reading: we read the big books Setting the table and Who, Who, Who? this week to help us practice our new word wall words said & the. 

We cleaned out our book boxes earlier this week and they brought home many of their Shared Reading books from the past few weeks.  Ask them to read them to you!

The spelling tests were tough this week, many incorrect words.  

Please practice nightly!

Friends working hard during their small guided reading groups

Writing Workhop: all school year we have been learning how to write personal narratives (stories about our lives.) This week your child cleaned out their writing folder and brought home many of the personal narratives they have written.  I hope you enjoyed looking through them and seeing the growth they have made since the beginning of the school year.  

We are going to spend the new couple of months learning about informational or non-fiction writing.  This type of writing will tie into our Service Learning project as well.  We have decided to partner with Unchained Melodies and help pets who need adopted.   More information will be coming home about this soon.

During writing workshop we will be learning about different types of animals/pets and how to write non-fiction books about these animals.  Over the course of the next couple of months your child will learn how to write an opening sentence, at least 3 facts about the animal and a closing sentence.  They will also learn how non-fiction books have a table of contents, labels, diagrams, headings, etc.  

This week and next week we will be learning and writing about Hedgehogs.  We even have a "pet" hedgehog in our classroom (stuffed animal!)

Kiddos always love the non-fiction unit of writing!

Math: this week we worked more on shapes (square, rectangle, circle, oval, triangle, rhombus and hexagon), went on a shape walk around the school, found different ways to make 10 and worked more on teen numbers.  

Science:  we were excited to finally see it snow at school this week and record it in our weather journals!  Usually we are at home when it snows!  We also watched a Mystery Science video about the weather and learned that we need to think of 4 components when discussing the weather: what the sky looks like, what people are wearing/need to wear, if there is wind and if there is something falling from the sky (precipitation).  We check and discuss the weather every day during our morning calendar time.  

Friday Craft: today we learned about Groundhog's Day, which is on Sunday.  They are bringing home a cute groundhog craft today.  Will we have 6 more weeks of winter (ugh) or will spring be here soon??

Puzzle Day: we had fun putting together puzzles that our friends brought in to celebrate "Problem Solving Week."  They were also able to put together puzzles on Tuesday after they checked out books in the library.  Mrs. Fitch and Mrs. Canepa had some fun and challenging puzzles out for us!

3rd grade buddies: on Wednesday, our 3rd grade buddies in Mrs Freese's classroom invited us to play with legos.  They won the lego tub this week and wanted to share in the fun with us!  We sure love our 3rd grade buddies!  

Red Friday! Go Chiefs!!