New from the Jungle

Cold weather is here! Please practice putting on and taking off coats, boots, shoes, scarves, gloves, etc. Your child should be able to do all of these things independently!

Remember, if you have not already sent your child’s library book back, please do so on Monday in order for them to check out a new book!

Upcoming Events

10/25 Halloween Dance – 6pm

10/31 PBIS Party – Cider and Donuts

10/31 School Costume Parade/Class Halloween Party

11/1 Half Day – Dismissal at 11:40am

11/5 No School

11/7 Conferences – If you signed up for this date, reminders of the time you signed up for will come home a week prior!

11/11 Book Fair in Library (2:30 -3:00)

11/12 Conferences – If you signed up for this date, reminders of the time you signed up for will come home a week prior!

Agenda for the Week

Reading & Writing: I noticed with writing that some of the children are having difficulty sounding out their words. Please have them practice writing sentences at home by pretending they are holding an imaginary rubberband and stretching it as they say the word they are trying to spell slowly. They may be trying to write the sentence, “The gray elephant is eating peanuts.” and it may look like this, “G lft E P.” Or it could look like this if they know their sight words, “The gra elifnt is etng pnts.” We work on phonetic spelling at this point in the year and use our letter sounds to spell words. I do not expect all of the words to be spelled correctly, but I do look for their to be some letter sound correspondence. This means that the letters which they are writing down make sense with the words they are trying to hear, even if they are only hearing the beginning sound at this point. That might look like this, “G L E P.” If I saw those letters, I would know that the child was hearing the beginning sound in the word and I would continue to work with the child on hearing more sounds in the word. The progression is first sound, last sound, and then hearing middle sounds. Many of the students are already hearing beginning, middle, and ending sounds, which is AMAZING!!! A writing sample is coming home today. Please take a look and work with your child at home accordingly!

I have also made a video about working on writing at home with your child. You can find it under the “How to videos” tab. I have also posted it here for your convenience:

We continued learning sight words this week. The kids love singing songs about sight words. As a reminder the words are: I, the, like, and, we, see, a, to, come, with, me. Below are a few of the songs we sang in class:

These words will be assessed on 10/23. This is different than the original date I sent home of 10/25. Thank you for your understanding in my need to switch the days. All children are receiving one-on-one tutor time on the sight words using flash cards, magnetic letters, dry-erase white boards, and much more! If your child already knows the words on this list, we are working on having them write them! They have not truly mastered the word until they can read it and use it in their writing as well!

I also created a video about sight words which gives great ideas you can use at home to help your child learn sight words. This video, along with many others I have made, is posted on the “how to videos” tab at the top of the blog. I have also posted it below for your convenience:

We reviewed nouns and adjectives and began learning verbs. We reviewed that a noun is a person, place, thing, or animal. We reviewed that an adjective is a describing word. We learned that a verb is an action word. This knowledge will help us increase our skills in writing!

This is the video we use in class to support our learning:

The children are learning about parts of a book such as the front cover, back cover, spine, title, title page, author, and illustrator. We are learning how to retell using key details from the text. The children learned that to make a prediction is to make a good guess and we had fun doing an activity to go along with some Halloween books we have been reading in class!

This week we worked on the letters Ff and Uu, as well as the sounds these letters make. Last week we worked on Ee and Ww. We learned how to write each letter and where each letter should be written on the line. The children learned that some letters stand on the line, some sit on the line, and some hang down below the line. We practice writing in a straight line without having any letters floating or crooked.

If your child has not mastered all of their uppercase and lowercase letters, as well as knowing the letter sounds, this video I made can help give you ideas to use at home to increase these skills:

Please utilize RazKids, Readingeggs, and Mathseeds at home. These are all wonderful resources to progress your child’s skills. When your child first logs on to Readingeggs and Mathseeds, it will ask them to take an assessment. This assesses their skill set and places them at the lesson that is best suited for them. Some of your children may start on lesson one or some may start on lesson nine. I love these programs because they place the kids at their own learning level!

Math: This week we continued counting, counting on from any given number, one-to-one correspondence, using number bonds, and addition.

We are focusing on a “5 group.” This is a row of five. This will help the children to easily count when we look at a ten frame and see that there is a 5 group across the top row and then count on from five using however many dots are in the bottom row.

This video demonstrates representing numbers in different ways. Within the video you can see a 5 frame and a ten frame to see what I am talking about with a 5 group. Also, if you have been following along with the workbook at home, this concept has been slowly introduced over the last several lessons.

Here is a number bond video in case you are unfamiliar with this term. We also call number bonds, “part-part-whole.”

The children are also working on their subitizing skills. This means they can look at a group (or set) of objects and tell how many there are quickly. Here is a video we have been using in class to support our learning:

Science: This week we began learning about force and motion! We are focusing on push and pull. The children discussed things they can push and things they can pull. We experimented with toy cars going down bumpy slides and smooth slides. The children got to play with magnets to see how opposite poles pull towards each other and the same poles push away from each other. We also learned about gravity. We learned that gravity is an invisible force which pulls us towards the earth’s center. We tried to watch gravity in action by throwing blocks in the air and watching them be pulled back to the ground.

Social Studies:  We continue focusing on identifying our feelings and using our words to express how we feel rather than using actions. We are fortunate to have the social worker pushing in to our room on Monday mornings to help us further our understanding of our feelings, identify them, and use them to express how we feel and what we want. We learned sentence stems this week to use our words to work through problems such as “I don’t like it when…” “It made me feel…” “Next time, please…” “I am sorry for…” and “I am sorry I made you feel…” This has been a great time of learning for the children and a great way for them to express themselves. I am happy the children feel comfortable to share their feelings in class and glad we are taking the time to focus instruction on the social-emotional needs of our children!

Housekeeping Items:

Folders

Please make sure to empty the folder each night! It is very difficult and time consuming to locate homework or important notes when the folder is full of papers from the day before. Please be sure to send the folder to school each day. It is a big part of our arrival and dismissal routines and the folders help the children keep all of their papers organized