Monthly news
Here’s What’s New In 232!
February News
Currently we are reading The Indian in the Cupboard. The children are so enthralled by a plastic Indian that comes to life. They are enjoying visualizing the details in the story and can’t wait to find out what happens next!
Reading
In Reading we continue to work on comprehension strategies. We have read Happy Birthday, Martin Luther King and have taken notes while reading. We have then organized our notes and written a summary of the book. From here we are going to be reading about Ruby Bridges and will be taking notes to write another summary. Our goal is to learn to differentiate between what is important information and what we can leave out. We will be using our skills to research a famous American and write a “research” paper.
Writing
Our writing time is directly tied into what we are reading. In addition to writing summaries, we are working on organizing information into paragraphs. We use different types of organizers to aide us. We are focusing on making sure we remember to use punctuation and capitalization.
Math
We have just finished working on volume. We have created a Math Journal so that we can take notes on new and fun concepts. In our journals so far we have determined that volume is the amount of space an object takes up; it is measured in cubic units; and it is always 3 dimensional. The children discovered that different types of containers should have volume measured with different things. For instance, our boxes are best measure with cubes but cylinders and irregular shaped objects work best with water or other materials that take on the same shape!
We have just started studying geometric shapes. We are working on determining the attributes of the shapes and then we will be looking for those shapes in our world. Geometry is such fun!
Science
In science we continue with our discoveries in balancing and weighing. We have compared the equal arm balance to the beam balance and determined their similarities and differences. We are moving on to taking objects and putting them in serial order. First we will make predictions based on appearance, then we will make predictions based on physical touch and then we will weigh them against each other. The children will have to come up with a strategy to put them in the proper sequence.
Upcoming Dates……..
Friday, February 4th Pride Day
Monday, February 7th No School for Students-Teacher In-Service
Tuesday, February 8th Report Cards go home
Thursday, February 17th Early Dismissal 1:00-Conferences
Friday, February 18th Early Dismissal 1:00-Conferences
Monday, February 21st No School-Presidents’ Day
January 2011
Reading:
In reading we have started a new strategy: determining importance. The children are looking at non-fiction text and identifying the title and the sub-title. With this information they are then looking in each section for the “Main Idea” and Important Facts. Then they look for the details that tell more about the main idea (supporting details). This strategy is helping the children to remember what they are reading. We will be expanding our use of this strategy to fiction text as well.
Writing:
In writing we continue to focus on a single topic. We have been working on taking one topic and creating a web in order to create paragraphs about a single event. The web really helps the children see the distinctions that they can make in their paragraphs. It is the highlight of the day when children get to share their stories with their peers. The confidence they display when reading out loud is really wonderful. Their peers are very supportive in their comments and suggestions.
Math:
Math is so exciting! We have explored the importance of zero and the children understand that zero holds the place value. We read a story about a king and his scribe. In the story the king would ask for 150 of something and the scribe would write “1 5 “ and leave a blank for the zero (apparently zero had yet to be invented!). The story continues with the king becoming very frustrated with the scribe and the incorrect orders. Finally the scribe requests the council of an older and wiser scribe and learns the value of zero!
We have been using this information to help us with adding base ten pieces. The students use flats (a square worth 100), skinnies (a rectangle worth 10) and bits (a cube worth 1). We played many games with dice where we had to “trade” 10 bits for 1 skinny and 10 skinnies for 1 flat. In this way we are looking to transfer our “game” to everyday adding! They are very excited about double digit addition. We use our white boards and our new dry erase markers (thank you!) to estimate our answers first and then to calculate our final answer.
They are really working hard and having fun!
Science:
We have just started our balance and weighing unit. This science kit is all hands on! The children get to explore balance and the relationship to weight. At the moment we have experimented with using a pencil as a fulcrum and exploring different objects that have fulcrums. In addition we are using a beam balance and cubes to look at how equal weight can be moved to cause the shift in the fulcrum! So much fun!
Dates to Remember………..
Friday, 1/7……..Pride Day
Monday, 1/17……Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Birthday…..No School
Friday, 1/21……..End of the 2nd Marking Period
Thursday, 2/3……..Report Cards Go Home
Friday, 2/4………Pride Day
Monday, 2/7………In-Service, No school for students
December News
What a busy month we have coming up! So many wonderful learning activities and preparations for the holidays! Be sure to look at the important date’s section to make sure you know our schedule!
Reading
We continue to work on our reading strategies. We have been using stickies to write down the questions we have as we read. Often, after reading further, we find answers to our questions. Then we write our answers down and move our sticky into the answered column in our reading journal. The students have been using this strategy with both fiction and non-fiction text.
This month we will be starting to read with questions in mind. As we look at non-fiction text we will be thinking about the things we are interested in finding out. We will navigate the non-fiction text features such as the glossary, table of contents and index to find our answers. Of course, the answers might just lead us to more questions!
Writing
Our writing time is so much fun! This past month we read The Plot Chickens, a story about a chicken named Henrietta who wants to learn how to write. She discovers she needs a main character and she also needs a problem and a solution. Armed with that information, we looked at 4 different versions of The Three Little Pigs. We compared the types of pig characters (some were wolves and javelinas!), houses, locations and other details. Then we set about writing our own versions of the Three Little Something’s! Wait until you see the creativity and artistry of these amazing stories!
We are now working on creating folktales!
Math
In math we continue to work on standard and non-standard units of measurements. We made our own meter tape and have been working on estimating using our tape. The children are becoming quite adept at estimating. We are rolling into car racing. Well, we use our meter tapes to gather data on how far our cars roll! Then we take the median number and graph our results. The children work so well in groups; it is so much fun to be a part of the action!
Upcoming Events
Friday, 12/3 Pride Day!
Tuesday, 12/7 Jonathan Sprout Concert (always wonderful!)
Thursday, 12/9 Half day for students (1:00 dismissal)/conferences until 7
Friday, 12/10 Half day for students (1:00 dismissal)
Wednesday and
Thursday 12/15-16 Building gingerbread houses! Yummy!
Friday, 12/17 Bring home gingerbread houses (more yummy!)
Monday, 12/20 Class party
Wednesday, 12/22 Well deserved rest for students! Enjoy your holiday break!
Monday, 1/3 Welcome back to school
Friday, 1/7 Pride Day!
If you have a question please feel free to e-mail me at school kari.peyser@redclay.k12.de.us
