Newsletter Nov. 4-8

Another great week has flown by! Here are some quick updates about what we've been up to and what to expect next

* Report cards will be sent home on Tuesday 11/12/13 and conferences start the very next day. 

* Don't forget that those three days are early release days so please plan accordingly.  
* Children will NOT have lunch at school on those days so it will be important to send them a healthy, satisfying snack that will keep them running until they get home/ after school care. 

Volunteer Schedule for November

 

In Reader's Workshop we have finished reviewing and learning strategies that students should use to read. Often they rely heavily on sounding out words but because our written language has so many exceptions and it is very difficult to hold enough sounds in your head when trying to figure out words with many letters, sounding out is NOT the most effective strategy. Instead, we have learned to:

* Look closely at the pictures and think about what it could be.
* Think about the beginning sound (which words from the picture could it be?).
* Think about the ending sound (did your guess match?).
* Skip the word (look for clues after the word) and then go back and reread. 
* Look for familiar chunks (little words in big words).
* Look for word families (words that rhyme: if I know ______ then I can read ______).
* Think... Reading is thinking! What makes sense?

This week we wrapped up learning these strategies and added the most important step. Once a good reader has done all the hard work and figured out all the tricky words, they go back and reread smooth until they can read with a "teacher's voice." This is super important for fluency. Please remind your child that they need to reread often to get practice with fluency and begin getting reading for our next unit that starts on Tuesday... comprehension strategies!

We are learning to add some variety to our stories and s-t-r-e-t-c-h them out and tell more. So far we have relied heavily on words like "Today", "This weekend", and "On (day of the week)" to start by telling when. Using some great mentor texts from Kevin Henkes, we have learned to add Brilliant Beginnings such as "When I woke up", "At lunchtime", or "As I got on the bus". Once we got that under our belts, we went back to those same stories and learned how to go from a detailed middle to a Mighty Middle! This can be done by by adding details that tell more than just first, next, then. We can add details that describe our observations using our 5 senses. "I could hear", "I felt", "I could smell", etc. By using the organization steps we've already learned, we can create stories that are easy to read, full of personal voice, and paint a picture in our readers' minds.

 In Math Workshop, students are still learning all about the foundational knowledge behind addition and subtraction. While in the past we simply wanted children to be able to add and subtract- often through memorization of facts, nowadays we really strive for students to understand how numbers can be manipulated and have a firm understanding of what these processes mean. Some of the big ideas and math vocabulary we are working on are:

* whole numbers are made up of two parts, and there are many different ways to break them into those parts (8 can be made by 4 and 4, 3 and 5, 2 and 6, etc.)
* combinations that make 10 (0 and 10, 1 and 9, 2 and 8, 3 and 7, 4 and 6, 5 and 5, 6 and 4, etc.)
* numbers go in order (less than, greater than, in between, fewer, more)
* vertical and horizontal addition and subtraction, symbols of (such as the equal sign)
* we can use subtraction to compare numbers
* adding and subtracting in any order (2+3 or 3+2)
* knowing when to add and when to subtract (word problems- clue words like all together, left, in all)
* fact families- 3 numbers are connected (if 2 and 6 make 8, then 8 take away 2 leaves 6, etc.)

Last week we focused on learning the format of the workshop (how to find our seats, when to change activities, HOW TO WORK TOGETHER) and took a quiz to see if we are understanding what we have learned so far. Everyone did their best and did a great job, so on Friday we began the next lesson in the unit... determining operations. This is just a fancy way of saying that we know when we need to add or subtract. You can help out at home by telling you child math stories and asking them to think about how to solve it instead of the answer. Children who know how they learn, do better in general with applying their knowledge flexibly.

 

I'm so excited to welcome Mrs. Renata Bowers back for our upcoming author talk! As someone who has personally worked with Mrs. Bowers as she was in the process of publishing her very first book, she is an inspiration. The presentation will take place at 1:30 on Tuesday.