Newsletter March 17th - 21st

Volunteer Schedule for March
Volunteer Schedule for April

 

In Reader's Workshop we are working on characters and connections. So far we have learned that Good Readers:

• think about the "who" and call them characters
• can identify the main or most important character
• think about what characters do and say
• describe characters using character traits based on what they do and say 
• understand how their characters feel by making text to reader connections 
• look for similarities between characters in different books, text to text connection

 
The list is always on my website:

March 24 - 28	Review
March 31 - April 4	New: draw, very, please, pretty, yes Practice Review: why, new, right, old, think Practice
April 6 - 10	New: every, most, again, does, quick Practice Review: draw, very, please, pretty, yes Practice

Please visit the kidblog to see your child's penguin research papers and give them some feedback! The password is "2013/14". Just be sure to sign your comments with who you are, you can just say _____'s Mom/ Dad, so the kids know who you are.

We are now working on our unit all about word choice
Good Writers: 
tell all about their characters and make them more interesting
give our characters traits by telling what they do and say
give the words our characters say a little "hug" using quotation marks 
use our 5 senses to add details
use "jazzy" and catchy words to make our writing more interesting

Unit 3: Counting and Place Value
We now know that numbers in the teens are made up of a 10 and some ones and that the numbers repeat 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 in the ones place and that the decade numbers (tens) sound like the number of tens they represent. For example, forty sounds like four!
You can help your child at home by giving them a collection of things (pennies, legos, beads, etc.) and helping them recognize that making groups of tens and then counting tens and ones is MUCH faster and more accurate than counting them by ones. 
We have begun to learn about numbers all the way to 120 using base ten blocks, trading ones for tens as we get to the next "decade" number. We are also learning to count on and back from 10 and could use a LOT of practice with this at home. For example: 47, 57, 67, 77, etc.

  

Social Studies focus:

Science focus: 
Next up...