Mark your Calendars!

I hope everyone enjoyed their Thanksgiving break and got to enjoy spending tie with your family Sandor friends. We have a few things coming up on the calendar between now and the December break First, remember to check the book calendar to see the days your chid may bring a book in to share. 

On December 9th (next Friday) we will go to the Academy of Music in Northampton to see parts of the Nutcracker performance and learn about what goes on behind the scenes during a performance. Please fill out the permission sip and return it with $5 in order for your child to attend. Next on December 15th we have a family get together from 6:30-7:30. Families are invited to come (in their pajamas) to Room 4 for pizza and games. Please send a donation to hep cover the cost of the pizza and supplies. There is also an RSVP for for this so we can get a count for ordering pizza. Your child will be invited to wear his/her pajamas to school that day as well. If you would like to brig a board game to Let me know if anyone is interested in helping!
If you have ay questions, please feel free to contact me prattl@arps.org

Happy, Thanks, and Giving!

Hi Families! I just wanted to wish you a happy and safe Thanksgiving break. I am so thankful to have your child and your family as part of our Room 4 community! The students in my room make teaching such a joy and at all of my family holidays I can never stop talking about how wonderful they are! Thanks again for all of your generosity with school supplies this year. We are in great shape with supplies but there is one thing we could use. I have had two families donate extra snacks for students who do not bring a snack. Snack is not provided or funded by the school so I have been buying snacks to several students who have been coming without. This number has been increasing and so I am asking parents if they can donate a non-parishable snack to the classroom. I would hate to not have a back-up snacks for students. Thanks for your support and have a great holiday!

Doubles!

-Ing, -ang, -ong, and -ung are the -ng word patterns we have been working on this week in reading. Students are learning that these are glued sounds and they stick together and make one sound together. Students are starting to read words like: king, string, sang, strong, wrong, long, lung, and hung fluently.


On Monday we did our first lesson in Comprehension Toolkit, where students are learning skills to strengthen their comprehension while they read and really think more thoughtfully about the content of the stories. Before starting we discussed the various reasons people read. Students helped me brainstorm ideas such as: to learn information or gain knowledge, to learn a lesson, to learn to read words, for enjoyment, for entertainment, and as a way to communicate or connect with others. We decided that it is important to think about The first lesson was based on , "The Art Lesson," by Tomie DePaolo. I modeled a read aloud and made connections with the text, based on my own life experiences. Students also participated in the read aloud by jotting notes on sticky notes and talking with a partner. Students also practiced retelling the story and talking with peers about the main idea or big picture. 

The Art Lesson: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qDOZ1iqjz8

Students have completed their handwriting books and we now have started Superkids sentence writing. The students are wrapping up their first "How To" books and will be starting a second one soon.

In math we have been learning our doubles addition facts (1+1=2 or 33+33=66) and our doubles plus one/near doubles facts (6+7=13 or 20+21=41). Students are expected to know doubles facts up to the sum of 10 and anything beyond that is fantastic! We have been building towers and playing games to work on these skills. Here was a doubles song that we listened to on our first day of "doubles learning":  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ik_-OAgzD-8

As we move into Thanksgiving we have been learning a lot about families and will continue to talk about similarities and differences as well as traditions, how we help our family and needs vs. wants. Students have so many wonderful ideas about families and what it means to be part of one. I hope you find time over the holiday break, if not before, to have a discussion with them about families and your family! I also hope you find some time a little R&R. You children have been working hard and learning so much and they have definitely earned a break!

AVMR or Add+Vantage Math Recovery

AVMR or Add+Vantage Math Recovery is the new math training K and First grade teachers have been receiving training in. It is focused on building a strong foundation in numeracy and really targeting holes in student learning in very specified areas, personalized for each student and his/her needs. Here is a link that supports some of the AVMR ideas and activities. You may be interested or find some of the resources to be helpful:


 http://knp.kentuckymathematics.org/family/index.php

Friendly Debates and Discussions and What's Up Next

With this election, it seems funny to be discussing the idea of "friendly and respectful" debates, right? In our class we read the short decodable Superkids Story, "What a Pet!" and discussed the main idea, practiced retelling and what was the point of this story. We realized that this story, about Oswald who shows Hot Road his pet rock that is painted like a frog, brought up the question of whether or not a rock is a pet. Suddenly, a teaching moment, and a fun opportunity to have a debate. We encouraged students to listen to both sides and show respect to the opposing side  and to work with their team to brainstorm ideas and respond to the other side's points. We worked on giving everyone a turn so that everyone had a voice. The class broke up into two groups and Ms. Leah joined the side arguing against rocks being a pet, and I joined the group arguing that rocks are or can be pets. Here were some of the awesome points brought up by both sides:

• "Rocks are not Pets":
• the are not born
• they do not have a real heart
• they cannot walk or stand on their legs
• they do not have a brain
• they do not breath
• they do not need air 
• Rocks are Pets":
• you can clean them/give them baths
• you can take them for a walk (in your pocket)
• you can swim with them
• they may not have a heart but you can draw one on and then they do have one (same with a brain)
• you can put them to bed
• you can make them a cage/house
• you can love them and feed them (they may not actually eat but you can give them food)
• They are born from mother nature

Regardless of the verdict, which was a hard one because both sides had great points, we came to a decision mostly swayed by the definitions listed in the dictionary. Both sides had fun and did a wonderful job showing CARE while still voicing there opinion. The presidential candidates should look to room 4 as examples of how to treat one another. 

We will be wrapping up Unit two this week in Superkids and starting the -le ending and -am, -and, -ank, -onk, -ang, -ong, -nt, etc. (glued ending sounds).

In math we are working on frames and arrows (skip counting by 2's, 5's, 10's and some of us are trying 3's and 4's and even 6's as a challenge). Next week through Thanksgiving our focus will be on doubles facts and doubles +1. For example: 6+6=12 and 6+6+1=13.

WISH LIST: Here are some things we could use in the classroom: white-out tape, foam poster tape (for hanging work), index cards, extra snack for students who may forget their snack. Thank you to everyone who has donated! I really appreciate it!

I hope you all have a wonderful long weekend!

Room 4 is GOLDEN!

CONGRATS TO ROOM 4 ON EARNING THE GOLDEN SNEAKER THIS WEEK IN GYM! I'M SO PROUD!

Skip counting and then there were 15

In math we are working on counting by 2's, 5's and 10's but our goal is to have everyone counting by 5's and 10's by this point in the year. We would love to have students starting to break apart large numbers to help make adding "scary" numbers look a little friendlier. SO making groups of 10 or 5 when adding. For example, I can take the equation 62+25=? and make it simpler for me to solve, by saying: 62=60+2 and 25=20+5. I can then add 60+2+20+5=? and simplify that to 60+20=80 and 2+5=7, so 80+7=87. SO much of math is looking for patterns and decomposing numbers, which is why students knowledge of numeracy is so important. Tomorrow I will attend day 3/4 of the AVMR math training and students will get their movie day, which they have earned for filling their pom-pom jar. The other first grade classes have each had at least one movie day, so after many requests from C-4 students, they will get their movie day.

Another fun announcement is we have a new student who has joined our class. He makes 15! All of the students have been so welcoming and helpful and he is such a sweet student. So thrilled to have him join us. Please remember to fill in your reading logs and remember to check the "reading share calendar". 

In ELA we are wrapping up unit 2 next week. Students have been practicing using punctuation and reading and writing the memory words used at the beginning of many questions: who, what, where, when, why, which. These are tricky but students are doing a wonderful job! We are almost through the Handwriting without Tears workbook and will be doing some Landmark sentence structure work as well as Superkids sentence writing. Students have just started their "How To" writing and put careful thought into their topics. Each student has an idea that is very unique and special to their expertise!

I have included above some photos of the students reading with their third grade reading buddies in Ms. Joyce's class. We get to read with them every Friday afternoon before specials.