Trying to get the children to wear their coats the last several days has been a huge disaster! The children are refusing to wear coats! They hide them in their backpacks and tell me that they do not have a coat. It takes our whole recess for me to go through each child’s locker and backpack to find their coat.
We are going to end up not being able to have any recess because we are wasting time looking for coats. Please talk with your children about the need for them to wear coats and keep them on now that the weather has gotten cold.
Please also practice having your child put on their coat and zip it independently. Also please show them how to pull their sleeves out. Many times the sleeves get turned inside out and then the children do not know how to straighten them out.
Winter is coming!
The need for mittens/gloves, scarves, earmuffs/hats, and boots is around the corner! Please practice putting on and taking off these items at home so that your child can do it independently at school!
Make sure to get in your book orders by tomorrow (10/17) if you would like to order any books this month!
There are lots of great phonics sets to help your children learn letter sounds and great sight word sets to help them learn sight words! Just type in the search bar on the Scholastic page “phonics” or “sight words.” There are even phonics and sight word games for purchase!
Please use the link below the sign up to volunteer for a center in the classroom during our party.
A note with more details about both came home yesterday. I have also posted the note below for your convenience.
If you volunteered for the Skeleton Centers, please wait a few days before signing up for a volunteer slot in order to give other families a chance to come in and volunteer. Thank you!
Here is the note which came home describing the party and parade:
Halloween is just around the corner! We will be celebrating on Thursday, October 31st.
Here are a few things you should know:
Costumes: This year we are asking that your child come to school already dressed in their costumes. It takes too long for one teacher to dress every single child in the class. Costumes should be school appropriate. This means that your child should be able to get themselves in and out of their costumes by themselves in order to use the bathroom! We do not want any of the children to have an accident because they cannot undo their costume! Please keep this in mind when selecting a costume to wear to school. Mr. Short has asked that all accessories to costumes be left at home. These items include, but are not limited to, masks, wands, swords, guns, etc.
Classroom Party: We will have a classroom party with centers for the children to participate in different activities. Due to limited space and general chaos that is created by having 50+ people in one room, I am asking for parents to sign-up to volunteer using a sign-up genius link which will be posted to the blog. We will have 10 volunteers for the classroom party.
The centers are as follows:
Sugar Skull Bean Bag Toss/Witch’s Hat Ring Toss
Halloween Craft
Halloween Craft
Pumpkin Guts Slime
Snack (a healthy snack will be provided for your child)
Costume Parade & Trick or Treating: All families are welcome to come to the parade! At 2:50pm we will have a costume parade which will go around the entire school. Each grade will be called out and will have the opportunity to walk around the building 2 times and show off their costumes to the rest of the school! You will not want to miss out on seeing all of the kiddos in their costumes! ☺ Don’t forget your camera!
Thank you for your cooperation in making our day a success!
10/16 Late Start – arrival at 9:35am. School starts 9:40am.
10/17 Scholastic Book Order Due (Please have all your orders submitted by this day. The books will arrive about one week later from the date I submit all classroom orders)
10/18 School Store at Lunch (If you want to send money with your child to buy something from the school store please make sure they know where the money is located, either in their backpack or their lunch box. I am not with them during their lunch period, so they will have to do this independently!)
We had so much fun doing our skeleton centers on Thursday afternoon! Thank you to all of the volunteers who came and worked centers to make our event a success!
**Some of the images are upside down. I tried editing the images several times to rotate them, but they kept defaulting and turning upside down again. Sorry for this!
Cold weather is coming! 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
10/10 Skeleton Centers
10/11 Half Day – dismissal at 11:40am
10/15 PTA Bingo for Books 6:30 – 7:30
10/16 Late Start – arrival at 9:35am. School starts 9:40am.
10/17 Scholastic Book Order Due
10/18 School Store at Lunch
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: We began learning sight words this week. The kids love singing songs about sight words. We focused on I, the, and like. Below are a few of the songs we sang in class:
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:
The sight words for the month are: I, like, the, and, we, see, a, to, come, with, me. 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!
We also began learning about nouns. We learned that a noun is a person, place, thing, or animal. This 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 Dd and Ww, as well as the sounds these letters make. 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:
I am still testing the children on their independent reading levels in order to prepare to work with children in small groups and to be able to send home books at each child’s individual reading level!
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 worked more on counting, counting on from any given number, one-to-one correspondence, using number bonds, and addition. We also used unifix cubes for the children to have hands-on experience with making two groups of numbers, pushing the two groups together, and then counting all the cubes to find out “how many in all.” The children are doing well with this beginning concept of addition!
Here are some number bond videos 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 continued learning about apples and completed a taste testing to determine if different colored apples taste differently. The children concluded that red apples taste sweet and green apples taste sour. Here are some pictures from our experiment:
I love their cute sour faces!
Social Studies: We are 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
You can pay online or send in exact cash or check for Life Touch Photography. Make sure to send in the order form so the photographer knows which package and drop back you selected.
We will take our pictures first thing in the morning, so please send your children ready for pictures!
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
10/4 Picture Day
10/10 Skeleton Centers – Sign-up to volunteer through Sign-Up Genius (link posted on blog on 9/26)
10/11 Half Day – dismissal at 11:40am
10/16 Late Start – arrival at 9:35am. School starts 9:40am.
10/17 Scholastic Book Order Due
10/24 Pumpkins patch from PTA (Thank you PTA!)
We will keep these pumpkins at school and will do a project with them the next day!
10/25 Pumpkin Planting!
10/31 PBIS Party – Yard Games/School Costume Parade/Class Halloween Party
Agenda for the Week
Reading & Writing: We continue practicing the routines and procedures of Daily 5. The children learned about our writer’s workshop and practiced using letter sounds to stretch out words! The children could write about anything and drew a picture to match their words.
This week we worked on the letters Cc and Xx, as well as the sounds these letters make. 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.
I have begun testing the children on their independent reading levels in order to prepare to work with children in small groups and to be able to send home books at each child’s individual reading level!
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 worked more on counting, counting on from any given number, one-to-one correspondence, and finding hidden partners. For example: this is like seeing a pair of 2 and another pair of 2 when looking at a tower of blocks that has four. The hidden partners is leading us into working with addition and number bonds. We began discussing number bonds and using a hand model to understand part-part-whole. We also used manipulatives for the children to have hands-on experience with making two groups of numbers, pushing the two groups together, and then counting all the cubes to find out “how many in all.” The children are doing well with this beginning concept of addition!
Science: This week we learned about apples. We learned about the parts of an apple, how apples grow, and why apples are good for us to eat. The children labeled the parts of an apple, practiced patterns in math with apple shapes, and made an apple craft!
Mrs. Beydoun will be bringing in different colored apples for the children to taste on Monday so we can do a taste testing and see if different colored apples taste different from each other! Thank you for the apples Mrs. Beydoun!
Social Studies: We continue to discuss school rules and how to be a good friend. We are 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.
Housekeeping Items:
Snack Time
Please be sure to put the snack in a separate place from their lunch. Please show your child where you will put their snack each day in order to foster independence for them. Sometimes, when the snack is packed inside the lunchbox, the children try to eat their whole lunch at snack time. Please only send one snack with your child. Thank you for your assistance in separating your child’s snack and lunch.
Snacks should be healthy to provide the children with energy for their day. Please send a simple snack such as fruit, vegetables, cheese, and crackers. Please do not send candy as a snack. Juice and milk are not allowed in our classroom. Please do not send any kind of juice box or milk with your child for snack time. The children may have the juice or milk for lunch in the cafeteria.
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
Please use the link below to sign up to volunteer in the classroom. If you choose to volunteer, I will email you with the time of the event. There are only eight (8) volunteers needed for this event.
There is also an opportunity to sign up to donate a “bag of bones” Cheetos. We will need three (3) bags to complete our activity. If you are not able to volunteer, donating a bag of Cheetos is a great way to still be involved. If you choose to donate a bag of Cheetos, please have them sent to school by October 7th. These specific Cheetos are sometimes hard to find. We have had success finding them at Target, Walmart, and Kroger in the past. Here is a picture of what they look like:
