Learning Buddies

Last week we began our year long adventure with our fourth grade friends of Mrs. DePlaunty's classroom. They will be our learning buddies once a week! We meet on Thursdays at the end of the day for 30 minutes. Mrs. DePlaunty and I have selected each Thursday of the month to be a different concept/theme of learning to keep the students engaged and eager for this awesome opportunity. 

The first week of school we met our fourth grade friends and shared stories back and forth, listening and also exchanging conversations about what we heard.  

Last Thursday students were paired with a new buddy to practice math while playing addition war. 

 

 

 

This Thursday we have a very fun STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) activity for the students to try in small groups.

We are excited to meet with another classroom of the building to learn from one another, share great experiences with, and to build relationships while creating a fun learning environment!

CKLA Listening

Over the past couple weeks students have been learning about Fairy Tales.

You child has heard the fairy tale stories:

The Fisherman and His Wife

The Emperor's New Clothes

Beauty and the Beast

Below are some suggested activities for you to do at home to reinforce what your child is learning with the genre of fairy tales.

The Fisherman and His Wife

  

(A fisherman catches a flounder in the sea; the flounder tells the man he is actually an enchanted prince who has been turned into a flounder; the fisherman throws the flounder back; the fisherman's wife asks why he didn't first ask the flounder for a wish and send him back to ask for several wishes; finally, the wife asks for too many things and the fish leaves them with what they had at the beginning of the story.)

Ask your child what they remember, fill in any gaps in the plot, and ask your child if there is a lesson to be learned from this story. 

The Emperor's New Clothes

(An emperor finds great pleasure in dressing in different outfits; a strange weaver and tailor arrive and tell him they can make magical clothes, clothes only clever people can see; the emperor believes their story and hires them; everyone lies and says they can see the clothes in order to appear clever; a child finally states the truth)

Ask your child what they remember, fill in any gaps in the plot, and ask your child if there is a lesson to be learned from this story. 

Beauty and the Beast

Your child will learn the saying "better late than never" in relation to the fairy tale "Beauty and the Beast." Ask your child how this saying relates to the story.(When Beauty decides to stay in the palace of the beast, she asks the beast to grant her one request: to say good-bye to her family. The beast grants her this request, but makes her promise to return before the full moon. Beauty doesn't return when promised, but does return to the palace just in time to save the beast's life.) 

Talk with your child about other situations where one might use the saying "better late than never."

Math Review

Each afternoon students are involved in a math activity called Math Review. This is a short period of time where the students complete four different math concept area problems. Some or all concepts are different each week, depending on their level of understanding as a whole.

Students practice selected concepts Monday through Thursday, then test on Friday. This is their time to apply what they know, use the necessary resources of our classroom, ask their group members at their tables, and find the necessary tools to help further their knowledge towards each concept. After 10 minutes, all work is gone over as a group. Students are able to explain how to solve problems in different ways, correct errors, and possibly form small math discussions from any questions or connecting comments. 

In the end, students star all work that is done correctly, and add up their total. From there they set a goal to achieve for the next day. This way they are able to set realistic goals for themselves, see their growth and also track their results. 

Math Mountains!

We have been doing a lot of exploring with addition and subtraction equations. What we know and what we need to work on. 

A tool that has been a helpful resource this week have been Math Mountain Cards. These show a total (in all) at the top and two addends (partners) at the bottom. These give a visual representation of a total breaking apart into smaller numbers (addends). 

Math Mountains helps with:

Addition: Having two addends at the bottom to add together making a top total

Subtraction: Having a top total and needing to find an unknown addend

Students have learned to write addition and subtraction fact family equations that they can make from a variety of mountain cards.

Math Mountain Card pages are coming home for the students to cut out and keep at home. They can play a game we learned in class. We worked in partners, taking turns covering up one of the numbers on the mountain with a small object. The other person had to then guess the unknown number. This made the students think, use a strategy for addition or subtraction, then solve.

The yellow cards are easier and the blue cards give more of a challenge.

Please try to play this game with your child at home.

CKLA Skills

This week your child brought home a parent note for CKLA Skills. Last week in the classroom, the students began their second year of CKLA (Core Knowledge Language Arts). We are VERY excited to continue this learning and give students this opportunity!

Along with the parent letter, you will also see four different stories (oral reading) and worksheets (comprehension) we completed in the classroom together. These came home on Tuesday and Wednesday in their communicators, and the last two you will see in their Friday folders to read through over the weekend.

During both lessons this week students learned about our classroom:

 vowel code book

 consonant code book

We reviewed different sounds letters can make and different sounds letter combinations can make to help with reading and writing. Friday we introduced digraphs.
Ask your child if they can tell you what  a diagraph is and can use it in a word. 

Dictation

Spelling words from the sounds you hear.  

Chaining

Creating new words by manipulating the sounds in words where only a single letter is changed (added or deleted)

Example: at>cat>hat>bat>bit>bid>did

Students with CKLA will have occasional homework. Mostly stories to re-read through after we have already studied each one in class. They will also occasionally bring home a review page to do independently, and also spelling that will be included with the homework packets in a couple weeks. 

Please let me know if you have any additional questions or concerns.

Thank you!

First Day FUN!

We had a FANTASTIC first day of school!!

THANK YOU for all the generous supplies sent into our classroom for the year! Your contributions are greatly appreciated and will definitely benefit all students!

Thank you as well for preparing your kiddo for their first day of second grade! They were ready to dive in with confidence and motivation...it was extremely encouraging! They were excited, to say the least, to get going on all curriculum based instruction...with a few fun activities packed in as well.

Looking forward to many more great days!!

 

We're Back!!

So great to meet you all last night!! Thank you for taking the time to stop in, see the room, meet the teacher, and hopefully get that much more excited about starting an awesome year of school!! 

I know our conversations were brief, so PLEASE let me know if you have any further questions or concerns that were not addressed last night. 

Enjoy the last summer weekend before school! See all your little bundles next Tuesday!

New School Year

Hello Families!

Hope everyone is having an awesome summer!! I wanted to let you all know the blog from last year will have the same web address. If you are receiving this e-mail from last years blog you will want to unsubscribe so you do not continue to receive updated posts for the 2016-217 school year.

Good luck to you and your kiddos for the up coming year! I will miss them greatly but will enjoy seeing each and everyone in the hallways. 

Please let me know if you have any additional questions or concerns.

Thank you!

K. McNitt