News From Mrs. C
Our class news for the week of Feb. 11-15th
Tidbits From the Teacher
Hello There!
Everyone is eager for Thursday to arrive so we can celebrate Valentine's Day with our party and valentines. I hope you are able to come and see all of the fun in person! Our party will be from 1:30-2:30 in our classroom. I always ask the class to wear red, pink or white so go ahead and set aside a shirt or outfit in our party colors now. (It makes things less stressful later in the week!)
We have a STAR in our midst!! Kaio is performing at Dougherty Arts Theatre on Barton Springs Road in Austin on Feb. 9th at 5:45 pm. The performance is called "An Evening of American Musical Theatre" and he will be helping to sing selections from famous musicals. If you need a family activity, this one is free and sounds really fun!
Things to Return:
-Homework on Monday
-Valentine Box (decorated, name proudly showing, opening large enough for cards, and easy to open)
Dates to Remember
Feb. 9th: Barnes & Noble Book Fair @ La Frontera 11:00-3:00
Feb. 11-13th: Valentine Grams for sale before school in front hall. Send someone a friendly hello!
Feb. 12th: PTA Meeting @ 6pm in the cafeteria
Feb. 14th: Valentine's Party from 1:30-2:30 in our room
Feb. 18th: No School for students
Feb. 20th: Third Grade Economics Fair
Feb. 22nd: Six Flags Reading Logs due today or sooner
What We'll Be Learning...
Science- We are completing our conservation unit on Monday. Students are making posters to remind others of ways to re-purpose items or simply recycle instead of trashing things. The class went on an eco-walk and came up with ideas for lowering the amount of trash around our school. It's exciting to come up with ways to solve problems in the world!
On Wednesday, we'll begin our exploration of weather. We intend to be meteorologists for a few days. We'll be using weather tools to observe and graph weather changes from day to day.
Writing- We started our new unit on Small Moments. The students blow me away with how they take our mini-lessons and start using those skills in their writing! We learned about similes in reading and they're popping up in stories during writing. We'll keep picking special moments in our daily lives to write about. We'll slow down the most important part so we can add details and help our readers get a mental image. This is a great way to share our experiences with others.
Reading- The kids LOVE studying poetry! Figuring out the important parts and the rhyming words has been fun. We'll continue studying poetry and go a bit deeper into sensory language. We'll use our 5 senses to collect words and connect to memories we have.
I enjoyed the thoughtful responses the class gave me when I asked them what they knew about poetry. Their thoughts just blow me away sometimes! Here a few of the things your children told me:
Poetry describes your feelings. It lasts forever. It's trying to tell you something. It talks about your life. It makes you feel better. Some poetry says not real things but they mean something real. Poets write messages poetically. They rephrase words.
Wow. In other news, we have learned about verbs, nouns, adjectives, and articles. Let the Mad Libs begin!!
Spelling/Handwriting- We have learned to form Cc, Oo, Ss, Vv, Ww, Tt, Aa, Dd, Gg, Uu, Ii, Ee, Ll, Kk, Jj, and Yy. Please make sure your child is using the correct handwriting position and using capital and lowercase correctly on these letters specifically.
Spelling Groups are getting very fast at sorting and telling me what their rules are for their words. Sometimes students confuse the long and short vowel sounds so we're really working on that.
Valentine Class Wish List
If you were looking for a little something to give Mrs. C for Valentine's Day, she and the class talked about what is needed around the room.
The class has requested:
-new staplers that "don't jam up"
-rolls of tape for our dispensers- "but not the shiny kind-it's hard to use"
-more writing pens in fun colors (ink pens-not felt tip or permanent)
-smelly stickers (Mardel and Lakeshore carry these.)
-mini glue sticks for the hot glue gun (They can't use it but Mrs. C will!)
**We'll take gift cards in small amounts too! Those add up and can buy lots of things for us.**