Monthly Archives: October 2016

Oct. 31-Nov. 4th

Hello Families! Can you believe this beautiful warm weather? I hope you are enjoying it as much as I am.
Here are our plans for the week:

Monday: Halloween is tomorrow and Mr. Awada is allowing our students to dress in costumes if they wish. Please pay $1.00 to support our PTA if your child dresses up. It is not mandatory, so if your child does not want to wear a costume, this is completely fine. You may send a wrapped treat to pass out to each of our students (we have 26 children), but they will not eat the candy in school. They will bring it home with them. Please do not send any cupcakes, brownies, or other goodies that are unwrapped, as we cannot eat these in our classrooms. Thank you for your understanding.

Friday: We have a half day on Friday. Dismissal is at 11:45. There will not be lunch on this day.

Social Studies: We are talking about the past, present, and future. Students are giving examples of events in their life that happened in the past and present (now), and we are making predictions about what we might be doing in the future. We will begin looking at schools from the past and comparing them to schools now (present).

Science: We are still learning about the differences between the three states of matter: solids, liquids, and gases. Please continue to find examples right in your home of each. This helps them reinforce concepts we discuss in class.

Math: We will have our math test this week. We are learning to represent numbers in many ways (tally marks, tens and ones, dice, etc). Students must be able to add and subtract within 20. If this is still difficult for your child, please continue to practice at home. Using a number line and drawings are helpful strategies especially for the story problems.

Reading: We learned that adjectives are words that describe nouns (red, happy, beautiful). These words make reading and writing more interesting. Please have your child continue to read from his/her bag of books. We are working on the following:

1. Rhyming words
2. Nouns (people, places, and things)
3.Verbs (action words like run, jump)
4. Compound words (one word composed of two words like pancake, upside, downtown)
5. Synonyms (words that have the same meaning like little and small, big and huge)
6. Contractions words with apostrophes that replace two words like don’t= do not, can’t=can not

Writing: We are working on stating an opinion (topic sentence), providing reasons for this opinion (supporting details), and writing a closing sentence (conclusion). This week we will state our opinion about our favorite season.
Here are our spelling words for the week.

Spelling

Words

1. bath

2. both

3. with

4. other

5. mother

6. father

7. yes

8. no

9. as

10. has

October 26 homework

Tonight’s homework involves students looking at two ten frames. They have to count how many dots are in the first ten frame and record it. Next, they record how many dots are in the second ten frame. Then, they solve the equation. The goal is for students to begin “seeing” the right number of dots without counting. This will help them become more efficient.

During Daily 5, we learned that a synonyms are words that mean the same thing. For example, nice and kind are synonyms. This is a concept that we will revisit all year. Please have your child identify nouns, verbs, and synonyms while you are enjoying books together. Thank You!!

Oct 25 Homework

Hi Families!
Our homework tonight asks to solve story problems with pictures and number lines. They are finding it a bit challenging to figure out “how many more?” I am teaching them to set this up as a subtraction number. For example, if it says:
Luke had 18 books. Sam had 11 books. How many more books does Luke have than Sam?
18-11= 7

October 24

Hi Families,
The homework tonight involved the students finding the missing numbers to make the equation true.

We are learning that true means correct and false means incorrect.

We are also learning to decompose or break apart numbers. For example:

8= 2+2+4

12=2+2+2+2+2+2

Oct 24-28

Hello Families! I hope you are all enjoying the sunshine this weekend!
Here is our plan for the week:

Spelling: thin

2. think

3. thank

4. that

5. them

6. this

7. he

8. make

9. two

10. play

Reading: Continue reading from their bag of books. We are learning about verbs (action words), nouns (people, places, and things), and adjectives (describing words). Additionally, we are learned that compound words are words that have two words in them such as: pancake, cupcake, butterfly, understand. Contractions are words with apostrophes that replace two words such as: must not= mustn’t, can not= can’t

Math: We are learning how to add and subtract within 20. Also, we are using pictures to solve addition and subtraction problems. We are learning how to decompose or break apart numbers such as 20= 10+2+2+2+2+2. Continue to practice counting by twos, fives, and tens.

Social Studies: We are learning the terms: past, present, and future and looking at what schools, transportation, and occupations looked like long ago compared to now.

Science: We are continuing to study the three states of matter: solids, liquids, and gases.

Writing: We will begin our unit on Opinion Writing, where we state our opinion about something and supply three reasons why we feel this way. For example, this week we will write opinion papers on our favorite season.

Please bring in canned food if you are able. This will help feed families this holiday season.

Homework Oct. 20

It was so great seeing some of you at Science Night!

Tonight’s homework involved students finding the missing number in the number bonds. The circle at the top is always the biggest number or the WHOLE and the little circles add together to equal the sum. We just learned about number bonds, so do not worry if this concept isn’t completely mastered yet. Thanks!

Homework 10/19

Tonight’s homework was a review. They are to circle the two numbers in the rectangle that have the sum of a given number. This is tricky for some of them. I am trying to teach them to add the first to numbers and then the next to and so on, but this concept can be challenging.

We are also talking about comparing and contrasting: We look at two books and record things that are similar and different about the books. This is something you could do at home with them with their books in their bag. Thanks for the support!

10/17

Hello Families!

Tonight’s homework involves the students finding the two numbers inside the rectangle that (when added together) have a certain sum. For example, if the three numbers inside the rectangle are: 6, 8, and 2 and they are to circle the numbers that have a sum of 14, they would circle 8 and 2. Thank You!

Week of Oct. 17

Hello Families!
I hope you are all enjoying this weekend…even though it is rainy 🙂

Here are our plans for the week:

Reading: We went through all of our book bags and boxes on Friday to make sure that all of our books are a good fit for us (not too easy or hard). I will be meeting with your children regularly ( individually and in small groups) to introduce new books and reading strategies. Many of the students are working on blending the sounds when they come to words they do not know. This means to say sounds slowly, running them together until it sounds and looks right. I always encourage them to look at the picture for clues. We are also looking at parts of words. For example, the word fisherman has three parts that most of the students know: fish er man

I even allow them to cut these words apart (into pieces or chunks that they know).

Writing: We are going to write personal narratives about “A Time we Went to the Zoo” This week, we will try to recall and write about three events from a story about ourselves. We use these words to write our stories: First, Next, After that, and Finally.

Math: We are learning how to figure our one or two less than a given number: remember less than means to subtract and “more than” means to add. We are also learning to use and draw pictures to solve subtraction and addition word problems. Important vocabulary words include : sum, difference, minus, plus, addition, subtraction, more than, less than, number grid.

Science: We are sorting objects into three categories :solids, liquids, and gases. Also, we are learning that matter is all around us and we are able to tell the difference between different types of matter. Liquids pour and take the shape of their containers while solids do not change shape and do not flow or pour. Gases expand and cannot be seen.

Social Studies: We are taking our social studies test on the computer, which is taking a really long time 🙂 They are showing that they know that rules keep us safe, are fair, and provide order. Also, they must be able to tell the difference between people who have power with authority (the right to tell you to do something, like a teacher or principal) and those who do not (such as a bully).

Here are this week’s spelling words:
1. far

2. park

3. farm

4. car

5. are

6. star

7. come

8. blue

9. here

10. help

Oct. 13

Hi Families!
Tonight’s homework is very similar to last night’s because many children found this challenging. I retaught the lesson today, so hopefully this will help clarify these concepts. Here is an example of what they are being asked to do.

Find 2 less than 15

Write a number sentence to show your thinking

Answer: 15-2=13

Find one more than 34

Write a number sentence to show your thinking

Answer: 34+1=35

Remember tomorrow is a half day. Dismissal is at 11:45

Please send in canned food if you are able. This will help us provide food for families in need. Thank you for your cooperation.

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