Weekly Update 1/21-1/24

Language Arts

This past week we learned a new sight word, "his." We are continuing to use the paper books in class to use during our Daily 5 read to someone activity. These books will begin coming home on a regular basis in the next month or so. Please remember to continue practicing sight words and reading the paper books with your student so they continue to learn their sight words and their reading skills!

We're moving along in our Fundations work. We learned four new uppercase letters last week, Gg, Hh, Ii and Jj. The practice pages will come home next Tuesday. I ask that your student also practice writing both their first and last name on these pages. They should be using only uppercase letters for the first letter of their first and last names.

Guided reading groups are in full swing! Your students are off to an amazing start. If you have questions about the books you see come home, how best to read with your student, or strategies to try if they're becoming frustrated (or "bored" as they most likely will call it), please let me know and I will be happy to talk more with you.

Math

We've completed learning our numbers to 20! We're becoming pros at using 10-frames to see the parts of numbers and will complete Chapter 6 next week.

We have also continued discussing the correct names for 3-D shapes during our Daily Calendar time. This week, we introduced the term sphere for round objects like balls, oranges or bubbles; cones like ice cream cones or party hats, and understand the difference between a cone and pyramid. We will continue to discuss these shapes along with flat shapes and learn about corners, sides and faces.

Science

This week we had the opportunity to visit with Ms. Stella from the Discovery Museums and learn more about bubbles. The students loved every moment of this activity and learned a lot about the properties of bubbles. We learned that a bubble touched with something dry will always pop, but if touched with something wet, can be touched and manipulated without popping. The students also saw that even when we create bubbles with different shaped objects like a triangle bubble blower, the bubble will always become a sphere.

The students had a wonderful time and learned many new and excited concepts with Ms. Stella. I hope they came home and shared everything they learned with you!

Important Reminders

*Students need to return their plastic Ziploc bag which contains their guided reading books (not the paper sight word books) to school each Tuesday. If this bag along with the book is not returned, I cannot send another book home for them to practice. These books will continue to come home until the student has become masters at reading the book and it will be cycled out of their bag to make room for new practice books.