Past and Present

Hello Families! I hope you had a great Thanksgiving break! Students came back with a lot to share and seemed like they had a wonderful time with their families. It's amazing that our second holiday break will be here in just another month! We will be learning a lot before it's here. Here's a look at this week's Learning:

ELA:

Students are learning about root/base words and making them past tense by adding an -ed or making them present by adding an -ing to the ending. This is tricky because students need to remember when writing the word that they need 2 consonants before the ending. And then, of course, there are always exceptions to the rule. 

Math:

Students are working on subtraction and looking at taking apart numbers as well as taking away parts. We will also look at subtraction as comparing (or finding the difference) and showing subtraction on a number line (both with numbers and without numbers-an open number line. 

Writing:

Students are doing a 1-week mini unit that is focused on sentence writing and distinguishing complete vs. incomplete sentences. Students are learning about the parts of a sentence, what makes a sentence, and how to build complete sentences. This should strengthen students writing and their confidence to write more independently.

Thank you to all of our parents and families who came to share about traditions and cultures! It made the unit much more personal and students were much more engaged! 

Room 4 Wish List: Dry Erase markers, extra classroom snacks

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hope you enjoy your time with your family! Wishing you a happy and safe Thanksgiving break!

IMPORTANT UPDATE!

Hello Families. The first grade team is sad to inform you that we received this email from the Pioneer Valley Ballet last night regarding our upcoming field trip on December 8th. I plan on giving them a call today, however, I want you to know that although this field trip is cancelled, we will be holding onto the collected money for our next field trip in early/mid January. I am really disappointed as this has been one of my favorite field trips, but maybe you can attend their evening performance with your child or read your child the story. Thanks for understanding and let me know if you have any questions.

Hello friends, We've recently had to make the difficult decision not to hold our Educational Outreach Performance of The Nutcracker this season. We will miss hosting this special presentation, but there were a number of practical factors that convinced us to make this a hiatus year.

Thankful

Hello Room 4 families! Hope you are all looking forward to the holiday season and the family time that is approaching with some time off from school and hopefully some time off from work for you! I want to thank so many of you for attending the potluck and those of you who have visited or are planning to visit to share about your family and your traditions. I am so thankful to have such wonderful families as part of our classroom community! Here is a look at our learning for this week and the short two day week before the Thanksgiving break:

ELA and Writing:

We will be wrapping up unit 4 before the Thanksgiving break. Students have been working on character traits and retelling of stories during their differentiated guided reading time. Students have used Story Grammar Marker to retell and then completed a comprehension packet that goes along with each book they have read. Asking students to respond to their stories in writing builds both their comprehension and writing skills. We have worked on memory words and pattern words ending in -le, -ng, -er and the 3 sounds of -ed (/d/, /ed/ and /t/). 

Students are continuing their work on their "How To" story and will completing it before the break. Students are using: First, Next, Then and Last to talk about their steps and adding warnings and helpful hints. Students are also adding a section to their stories: About the Author, where they share info about themselves. Students are working on punctuation and capitalization. When we get back, students will work on sentence writing and build a stronger understanding of the parts of a sentence and what makes a complete sentence.

Math:

Students will be wrapping up  unit 4 for math before the break. Students have been learning their doubles facts (1+1=2, 2+2=4....) and their near doubles facts (doubles +1), which include 2+2+1/4+1=5. Some students have worked on breaking apart numbers into their doubles pairs and their doubles plus one pairs: 4=2+2 or 5=4+1. When we get back from the break we will dive into our unit on subtraction.

Social Studies:

Students have been learning about families, mostly first hand. We have had so many families and staff members volunteer to speak! It is neat for students to see that everyone's family is so different and how we define a family is different than they thought when we started this unit. Students are in the process of creating a beautiful multi-step family portrait. It is a fun way to infuse art into the unit! When we return from vacation we will wrap the unit up and then start a science unit on air, wind and weather.

Hope you have a great Thanksgiving for those who celebrate it! I also take a little time to think about all the things I am thankful for and how lucky I am! Hope you get to spend some time with your family and awesome Room 4 kids!

Wish List:

-Dry Erase Markers
-Extra Snack
-Tissues

A Room 4 Story

This week for my weekly post I want to share a story that we wrote as a class. We read a story about the Superkids call, "Fiddlesticks", where they pass a stick and each add on to a story, So, we gave it a try in our class and here is our story:

Once upon a time there live a boy named Jack and a girl named Emma and they lived in an enchanted forest. They got bitten by a spider and then they found a lost horse. The horse showed them a magic potion. Emma drank the magic potion but Jack did not. The potion allowed Emma to breath fire like a dragon. Jack was a little nervous about Emma breathing fire so he ran deeper into the forest and soon found himself lost. Suddenly Jack saw two big blue eyes watching him from a bush. The bush moved and out came a baby tiger. Thank goodness it was just a cute baby! Meanwhile, Emma was thinking of a plan to save Jack. She started breathing fire to burn down trees in order to get to Jack. But there was no Jack in sight. Emma continued to burn through the woods, while Jack was in his own pickle. The mom Tiger was nearby and she had seen Jack. She was chasing Jack trying to protect her baby. The baby tiger pounced on his mom, protecting Jack because Jack and the baby were friends. Then the mom tiger ran away with her baby. Emma was breathing fire and then she finally saw Jack. They were both really happy! Emma said, “Let’s follow the burnt trail to find our way back home.” They followed the trail and were finally home. When finally home, they fell quickly asleep. 

ING, ANG, ONG, UNG!

Hello families! This week was a busy one with Halloween (those who celebrate),the rain and the shift in weather to more "normal" fall temps. Here's a (quick) look into our learning:

ELA/Superkids: Students began unit 3 of Superkids. We are starting to learn word patterns and looked at word endings: -le and -ng. So we learned words like cattle, puddle, simple and learned that we need two consonants before the -le so sometimes we need to double to consonant. This is not such an easy rule to remember so we will keep practicing. We also learned the -ng ending such as -ing, ang, ung, and ong. Memory words for this unit are: do, have, show, how, me, and a.  Please keep reading nightly with your child at home! It really makes a difference!

Writing: In writing we started out "How To" unit and we read some  "How To" stories as well as did a demonstration and shared writing for "How to Make a Sun Butter and Jelly Sandwich." You should ask your child about it. It was a lot of fun. Students started to think of ideas for their How To story and things that they know how to do very well. Our first step was then thinking of the materials we would need.

Math:In math this week, we wrapped up our unit on skip counting and part/part/total. We will continue to look at these skills throughout the year and go back into part-part-total when we do more with number lines, addition and subtraction and fact-families, where were learn that addition and subtraction are related.

Family Unit: We started our family unit this week and defined family as a "kick-off". This definition should change as we learn and get deeper into discussion. I suspect by the end of the unit, when we revisit this, it should be quite different. We also looked at some photos of diverse families and had some open discussions. This would be a great topic for you to discuss at home with your child. Students have also started to share who is in their family and started the process of creating a family portrait. We have also had some staff visit and share about their families. Next week I look forward t having some room 4 parents visit and to our family potluck!

Reminders: 

• Family Potluck is on October 8th from 5:30-6:30 in the cafeteria. Don't forget to rsvp.
• Please remember to turn in your child's permission slip for the Nutcracker Field Trip on December 8th. I know it's early but we need to pay in advance to reserve a spot.
• Keep reading nightly with your child at home!

Wish List:

• Snack
• Kleenex
• glue sticks