Spelling Week of Nov. 4

1. fish
2. ship
3. thin
4. shop
5. with
6. thank
7. beg
8. get
9.live
10. many

News From Mrs. Straw

Events:

-Oct. 31 Fall Party

-Nov. 1 No School

-Nov. 3 Daylight Savings Time

-Nov. 13 2 Hour Early Out

-Nov. 27 1 Hour Early Out

-Nov. 28 and 29 No School, Thanksgiving

What’s Happening in BUILD:

B (Buddy Games)- Balance the scale (Use the specified numbers and unifex cubes to balance the scale.)  Objective: Knowing that both sides are equal.

U (Using Manipulatives)- Tens and Ones Trading Game (Players take turns putting base-10 blocks on their Tens and Ones Mat according to the roll of a die.  Whenever possible, they exchange 10 cubes for 1 long.  The first player to get 10 longs wins.

I (Indpendently Working)- Clocks to the hour

L (Learning with Numbers)- Problem solving with adding several numbers.

D-(Doing Math)- Scootpad on laptops

Notes:

-Students really worked hard on practicing their presentation for conferences.  Thanks to everyone who made it.

What’s Happening in Daily 5:

*Listen to Reading (Bookflix)

*Read to Self (Poem: “Spooks”)

*Read to Someone

*Work on Writing

*Word Work

        -Smartboard (practiced short e)

-Ipad

-Rollin’ Rollin’ Rollin’ (Students roll

a die and write spelling words in different ways)

-Jack O’ Lantern making words

(Make 2, 3, and 4 letter words with the letters in jack-o-lantern.)

-Stencils (write spelling words with stencils)

          -Roll and Spell (roll and word and

write spelling words in a specified color)

Week in Review:

- This week in our test practice we worked on listening carefully.  Some of the clues were:

-To think about what you hear

while you look at each picture. 

-Listen to all answer choices before you chose. 

-Be sure about your answer.

-Think about what the sentence means.

-When you think you hear the correct answer, put your finger next to it. Listen to all the choices.

First Grade News

Upcoming Events:

*November 3: Daylight Savings Time (Fall Back 1 hr.)

*November 13: 2 hr. Early Out

*November 27: 1 hr. Early Out

*November 28 and 29: No School, Thanksgiving Break

Notes:

*Thank you to the parents that attended their child’s conference.  Your involvement is important to your child.

*This week we participated in red ribbon week.  Students completed pledges and hung them in the room.  

Things to Work on:

*Sequencing a book by beginning, middle, and end.

*Equality: Knowing the equal sign as: same as.  Being able to know that both sides need to be the same.  Example: 3+3=2+4.

What we have been up to:

Reading: Our theme this week was helping out.  We read The Little Red Hen and talked about the main idea, no one wanted to help Hen.  We spent time working with our word families: -eg, -en, and –et.

Math: In math we started Unit 3.  We spent the week talking about Math Mountains.  Students seem to learn quickly how to find the missing numbers.

Science: We have started our new unit in science about animals.  We have talked about mammals and their characteristics.  We were also able to do a book search and list characteristics of birds.

Spelling Week of Oct. 28

1. leg
2. beg
3. men
4. hen
5. let
6. get
7. hop
8. hot
9. who
10. some

News from First Grade

Upcoming Events:

*Oct. 29 Early Out (1 hour)

*Oct. 31 Fall Party

Notes:

*This week we started writing How-To paragraphs.  We started by carving a pumpkin.  Students then designed their own pumpkin and wrote about their design using sequence words.

*Every Thursday morning we will be having DEAR (Drop Everything and Read) time.  

*Next week is the last week of the month so read, read, read.  We will be tallying minutes next week to see who the highest reader is in each class.

Things to Work on:

*Retelling a book with main idea and supporting details.  What happened first, next, then, and last.  

What we have been up to:

Reading: Our story theme this week is about animals.  We spent time reading Make Way for Ducklings and talking about the beginning, middle, and end of the story.  Students then put on a show with come stick puppets to retell the story.  We worked with the –op, -og, and –ot word families.  This week we also learned about nouns.  Students should be able to tell you that a noun is a person, place, or thing.  We went on a scavenger hunt to see what we could find that is a noun.  We also practiced sorting nouns into the groups of person, place, and thing.

Math: In math we finished unit 2.  We worked with subtraction story problems and number sentences.  We also learned about writing math problems vertically instead of horizontally.  The unit 2 test included some addition and some subtraction equations.

Science: We have started our new study on the animals. We have read about mammals and their characteristics.  While we read we made a web to of all the characteristics so that we could have a plan for our writing about mammals.  

News from Mrs. Straw week of Oct. 21

Events:

-Oct. 31 Fall Party (notes of students who will provide items are being sent home this week)

What’s Happening in BUILD:

B (Buddy Games)- Nickel Penny Exchange (Students roll a die and they take the same amount of pennies out of the bank.  Once they have five pennies they can trade for a nickel.  Winner is who has the most when the bank is empty.)

U (Using Manipulatives)- Tangrams (Get five shapes to fit together to make specified larger shapes.)

I (Indpendently Working)- Addition flash cards

L (Learning with Numbers)- Problem Solving with subtraction story problems.

Week in Review:

-We have started some new math and reading warm-ups.  We have been practicing these content areas with a quick target teach designed like Iowa Assessments.  Practicing test taking strategies is very beneficial to students when it comes time to take the actual test they are more calm because they have practiced what to do.

What’s Happening in Daily 5:

*Listen to Reading (Bookflix)

*Read to Self (Poems: “I like Ghosts” and “Hello Halloween”)

*Read to Someone

*Work on Writing

*Word Work

        -Smartboard (practiced for

conferences and short o)

-Ipad

-Making words with cereal

-Making words with stencils

-Searching for words in a water

bottle filled with colored rice and words then writing down the words they find

          -Games with short vowel sounds

Notes:

-This Friday we had our first Super Achiever lunch.  One or two students were picked each week that showed E-Hawk boundaries.

-As the weather is changing please send your child to school appropriate outside attire: coat, hat, and gloves.  West Elementary policy is there are to wear a coat if it is below 50 degrees.

-Soon the snow will fly.  As soon as we have snow that sticks they need to have snow pants and boots to play.

Spelling week of Oct. 21

1. hog
2. log
3. top
4. hot
5. lot
6. shop
7. sand
8. sink
9. one
10. they

News from Mrs. Straw

Events:

-Conferences Oct. 24 and 28 (4-7:30)

-Oct. 31 Fall Party (notes of students who will provide items are being sent home this week)

What’s Happening in BUILD:

***repeat of last week due to not getting through rotation****

B (Buddy Games)- Addition Top-It (Direction: Flip two cards from a deck of cards and add the numbers together.  The partner with the biggest sum get to keep the cards.)

U (Using Manipulatives)- Geoboards (practice making geometic shapes)

I (Indpendently Working)- Number scrolls

L (Learning with Numbers)- Problem Solving with subtraction story problems.

Week in Review:

-This week we discussed teamwork.  We shared examples and discussed ways we could show teamwork in the classroom.

-Some of our science vocabulary words were: balance, property, matter, and mass.

What’s Happening in Daily 5:

*Listen to Reading (Bookflix)

*Read to Self (Poems: A Goblin Live in Our House and Have you Seen…?)

*Read to Someone

*Work on Writing

*Word Work

        -Smartboard short a (review skill)

-Ipad

-Making words with cereal

-Sentence Strips (write words, cut

apart, and rebuild)

-Spelling scribble

-Boggle

Notes:

-Please send a note in your child’s planner if their plan is going to change for after school.

-Attendance is important.  Please try and make doctor appointments for after school or at the end of the day.

-Please bring your child to conferences.  This will be a time for them to show you everything we have been learning.

Week of Oct. 14

Upcoming Events:

* Parent Teacher Conferences Oct. 24 and 28 (4-7:30)

* Oct. 24 and 28 Early Out (1 hour)

* Oct 25 Pictures Re-takes (bring back picture packet)

* Oct. 31 Fall Party

Notes:

*This week our class has been working on summarizing.  We have really been thinking about the important details in a book.

*Please be sure to keep logging minutes for the reading challenge.  The minutes will only be counted if a parent signs or initials their planner.  It is also important that each student brings their planners to school daily.

Things to Work on:

*Making connections while reading and activate prior knowledge.

What we have been up to:

Reading: We worked with a lot of word endings this week: -and, -st, -ink, and –nt.  Students have been on a look out for words with these endings.  We were able to read some Halloween poems and talked about October related words.  

Math: In math we have been working on expanding our problem solving strategies beyond adding or subtracting two numbers.  Students worked with problems that involved adding more than one number: Billy has two bags of apples.  Each bag has 3 apples inside.  How many apples in all?  We also worked on writing basic subtraction problems.

Science: This week we wrapped up our science unit on matter.  We finished the unit talking about ways you can separate mixtures.  Students also conducted an experiment on which objects sink or float.

Spelling Week of Oct. 14

1.land
2. sand
3. fast
4. list
5. sink
6. ant
7. grass
8. trip
9. help
10. very

News from First Grade Week of Oct. 7

Upcoming Events:

* Parent Teacher Conferences Oct. 24 and Oct. 28(4-7:30)  

*Oct. 24 and Oct. 28 Early Out (1 hour)

*Oct 24 Clubs Choice Pick-Up

Notes:

*Please remember to return your spelling contracts on Friday.  

Clubs ChoiceThe fundraiser - Clubs Choice food will be delivered to the school on Thursday, October 24th.  It is very important that you come to school to pick up the food you sold as most of it needs to be kept cold.

Things to Work on:

*Recognizing literacy elements (characters, setting, problem, solution)

*Throughout this year we will study four major components of reading: CAFÉ (Comprehension, Accuracy, Fluency, and Expanding Vocabulary).  This week we focused on literacy elements under the comprehension component.

What we have been up to:

Reading: We worked with the sounds: gr, tr, and cr.  Students sorted words by these sounds and looked in books for words with these sounds.  We have made a poster of words with these sounds and our list is growing each day.  If you child finds a word with these sounds they can bring it in on a notecard and we can add it to our posters.

Math: We have been very busy learning this week in math. We have learned about nickels and pennies, counting on from the larger number, and working with subtraction story problems.  Students have learned a new math game.  Students roll a die and collect as many pennies as are on the die.  When they have five pennies they trade for a nickel.

Science:  This week we have continued our study on matter.  We have learned more about solids, liquids, and gases.  We learned that you can change the shape of matter but it doesn’t change the mass of the object.  We also learned how a liquid takes the shape of its container.  Students worked on sorting pictures into three categories: solids, liquids, and gas.

News from Mrs. Straw Week of Oct. 7

News from Mrs. Straw’s Class

Week of Oct. 7, 2013

Events:

-Conferences Oct. 24 and 28 (4-7:30)

        -Reminder notes of the times you signed up for on supply drop off night will be coming home soon.

What’s Happening in BUILD:

B (Buddy Games)- Addition Top-It (Direction: Flip two cards from a deck of cards and add the numbers together.  The partner with the biggest sum get to keep the cards.)

U (Using Manipulatives)- Geoboards (practice making geometic shapes)

I (Indpendently Working)- Number scrolls

L (Learning with Numbers)- Problem Solving with subtraction story problems.

D-(Doing Math)- Scootpad on laptops

Week in Review:

-We have started assessing or report cards. 

-We have finished our King and Queen of the Day.  Students each received a packet of every student’s interview to practice reading during read to self or read to someone.

What’s Happening in Daily 5:

*Listen to Reading (Bookflix)

*Read to Self (Poems: 5 Little Pumpkins and Halloween Soup)

*Read to Someone

*Work on Writing

*Word Work

        -Smartboard with short i and

r blend words

-Ipad

-Play dough

-Scribble spelling

-Onset and Rime cubes

-Making word (consonant,

vowel, consonant

Notes:

-I will be gone Oct. 11 for a science training.  In the next couple of weeks I will have another day that I will be gone but in the building. I will be doing testing from the C4K training that I went to in September.

-We have started to receive some of our Travel Teddies back. Check out the map in the hallway when you are in for conferences.

Spelling Week of Oct. 7

1. crib
2. crab
3. grab
4. grass
5. trap
6. trip
7. hit
8. win
9. that
10. good

Week of Sept. 30

Upcoming Events:

*Oct. 9 2 hr. early out

* Parent Teacher Conferences Oct. 24 and 28 (4-7:30) 1 hr. early outs

*Oct. 31 Fall Party

*Nov. 1 No School

Notes:

*Our library day is on Tuesday so please make sure your child’s library books are returned by that day.

*This week is fire safety week, please talk with your children about an escape route in your house in case of a fire.

*Occasionally, one of us is gone due to meetings, sickness, or a sick child.  Please remind your child to show E-Hawk boundaries to our guest teachers.

Things to Work on:

*Number writing to 120

*Asking your child about characters, setting, problem, and solution when they have finished reading their Hawk book.

What we have been up to:

Reading: We worked with the word families –iss, -in, and -it.  Our theme this week was about growing up and what things we are now able to do.  

Math: In unit 2 we have started talking about what the equal sign means: same as. We have been learning that both sides of an equation are the same for it to be equal, example: 5=5 and 2+3=4+1

Science: This week we started our new science unit on matter.  We learned about how all things are made of matter and began describing some of the properties of matter.  Some of our vocabulary words this week were: gas, solid, liquid, property, and balance.  One of our activities involved describing an object by using our five senses.  Some of our objects were a block, a balloon, and a lemon.