This week, the students not only practiced building their independent reading stamina, but work on math games, as well. Math games are a great way to review and reinforce skills that we have been working on in class. You have seen math homework come home that is actually playing math games at home. Whenever there is not a math worksheet for homework, please have your child play one of the math games they have brought home and taught you. Next week, we will continue building our math activity stamina and finish assessments so we can get the students working on math skills that are a good fit for them.
In reading, we have been practicing making connections using our schema. We read Wemberly Worried and Arthur's Tooth and were able to make some great connections to the characters in these stories. We have also been checking for understanding while reading. I gave the students a check mark that they will keep in their folders to check for understanding while reading. I will be sending a check mark home, as well, so they can continue practicing this strategy with you.
The students have been doing a lot of writing this week. We are continuing to write about each other and making books for our classmates about themselves. While doing this, the students have been practicing writing complete sentences, spacing their words, using capital letters and periods, using apostrophes and commas, and underlining titles of books. They have also been writing stories to go along with some projects we've done. They wrote a story about their rainbow fish on Rainbow Day and they wrote a story about a caterpillar while we reviewed the short a sound.
Here are some things to ask your child about:
1. What connections did they have with the stories we read this week?
2. What do they have to do to build their stamina in reading and math?
3. Were they able to put short a words into their caterpillar stories?
I sent the Scholastic Book Order, so the books should be arriving within a week or two. I was able to order many books for the classroom library, so thank you for participating in this amazing program! I will open up orders later on in the year again when some new catalogs come out.
It was also nice to talk to most of you this week. I tried calling everyone early in the week and I left you a message if I could not get ahold of you. Please just remember I am here if there is anything you need this year.
Reminders:
-We have our first field trip to Rivershire Thursday, Sept. 20 from 9:30-11:00. Thank you for those of you volunteering! We will see you there!
-I will be sending out an email for Mystery Readers, so think about possible days you might be able to come read to the class.