Miss Jones's Newsletter
December 2015
What we have going on in Room 150...
What we are working on...
Nightly Reading Logs and Weekly Sight Words
Please continue to read every night with students in their reading logs. After every 10 books, students receive a free pizza pass!!! Please also make sure to review sight words every night! These words are so important for students to know and to be able to recognize to build reading fluency!
This month we are working on...
Math
*We've been practicing Counting 1-50 by 1's.
*Counting to 100 by 10's
*Practicing Writing Numbers 1-10
*Learning 2D and 3D Shapes - Squares, Circles, Triangles, Rectangles, Hexagons, Cube, Cylinder, Pyramid, Cone, and Sphere
*Be able to identify shapes by the number of sides each shape has. Also being able to sort 2D and 3D shapes
*Compare two numbers between one and 10 presented as written numerals
*use the key vocabulary more than, less than, fewer, the same, most, least
*Count forward from any given number.
Literacy
*Using Print Concepts when reading stories (Author, Title, Illustrator, where to start reading, direction to read, what a period is, and retelling the story.)
*Learning Letters and their Sounds
*Practicing Writing Letters
*Phonological Awareness (understanding of spoken words, syllables, sounds)
*Practicing checking for understanding after reading/listening to a story by being able to tell the characters, setting, problem/solution, and what happened in the beginning, middle, and end of the story
*Questioning & Inferring Skills when reading or listening to a story. Also being able to understand and use question words and prepositions.
*Starting to work on being able to tell the difference in a noun and a verb
*With prompting and support, being able to identify the reasons an author gives to support points in a text. (Persuasion, Informative, and Entertainment)
*The Daily 5 Literacy Block
Fundations
*We have now learned all the letters and their letter sounds so we have moved on to blending sounds together to blend and segment words. For example, cat would be segmented as /c/ /a/ /t/ as the beginning, middle, and ending sound. We also call this Rollercoastering our words, however in a couple weeks we will move from rollercoastering words to tapping out words just using our fingers instead of our entire arms!
Writing
*Opinion Writing
Use a combination of drawing, dictating, and writing to compose opinion pieces in which they tell a reader the topic or the name of the book they are writing about and state an opinion or preference (My favorite book is…)
Science/Social Studies
Science
Forces and Motion: Understanding the positions and motions of objects and organisms observed in the environment.
Essential Vocabulary for this unit:
Zigzag, above, below, between, in front of, behind, on top of, straight, round and round, back and forth, fast and slow, under, fast, over, slow, top , bend, behind, straight, classify, sort, and beneath.
Social Studies
Civics & Government
We are also working with understanding how individuals are similar and different. We are going to use the holidays to really dig deep in on this standard by exploring other cultures holidays and how they celebrate! We will be learning about Hanukkah, Ramadan, Kwanzaa, Diwali, and Christmas in different Countries! We are very excited about this unit of study this month!
Economics and Financial Literacy
Understand basic economic concepts (Needs vs. Wants).
We had a great time working with Turkeys and Thanksgiving this month. However, I know everyone will love working on Holidays around the world as well as our Gingerbread unit this month! Thank you so much to all the parents who were able to make it to our Thanksgiving Meal Lunch, I know everyone was very happy to see you and it was a great success! We have another coming up this month so if you were unable to come to the one in November, maybe you can make it to this months!
***Also, a huge thank you for working at home with students on the work we do everyday in our classroom! I can really tell their hard work is paying off!
Gingerbread Houses
We will need:
Gram Crackers
Miniature Candy Canes
Peppermints
Gumballs
M&Ms
Skittles
Gum Drops
Lifesavers
Red Hots
***WHITE frosting/icing (the kind in a spray can works well, but the traditional spread kind works just fine too!)
***Aluminum Foil
***Small/party size clear or white plastic plates (to build the houses on to)
*Anything else that might help with making Gingerbread houses
Also, we would LOVE your help that afternoon! We will be working on them from 1:00 - 2:30, if you are free to come in and help out! Its a messy but FUN afternoon!
The Daily 5 - "In Action"
Daily 5, everyone busy at work!
Using Magic Reading Glasses to help us decode unknown Words!
Working hard on Read to Someone, making sure to check for the Who, the What, and the Where in the story!
The Daily 5
Right now, we are focusing on increasing our stamina to work independently during Read to Self (or reading to themselves). At this time we have introduced all of the stages in the framework and I am so amazed at how wonderful my smart little readers are doing during this time of the day! While the students are completing their literacy tasks, I have been meeting with small groups and conferencing with individual students. Students have been learning reading strategies to use during this block within 4 different categories (Comprehension, Accuracy, Fluency, and Expanding Vocabulary). These strategies will become tools for the children to use to help themselves become better readers and writers. I am already so impressed with how well my readers are using the strategies of using the pictures as clues to unknown vocabulary words and looking at the first letter in word and then getting their mouths ready to make the beginning sound to sound the word out! When reading at home with your students you can also use these strategies to help your student build their reading fluency and become better and more confident readers!
Working on writing in her writing journal!
Another picture of Read-to-Someone in Action!
All smiles about his word work rotation!
Fall After School Arts Ending Dates
December 1 - Last Day for Tuesday Classes
December 3 - Last Day for Thursday Classes
December 7 - Last Day for Monday Classes
December 9 - Last Day for Wednesday Classes
***Exceptions: Mr. Butler's class will be about 2 weeks later, Yoga will be a week later (instructors have notified parents if their end date has changed).
PTO's Penguin Patch Holiday Shoppe
Upcoming Holiday Shoppe for students
PTO is in need of volunteers! If you are interested in helping students purchase holiday gifts for their families, then this is the perfect opportunity for you to help the PTO out! This year Claxton PTO will host the Penguin Patch Holiday Shoppe from Tuesday, Dec. 15th, through Thursday, Dec. 17th. Students are encouraged to earn and save their own money between now and then.
PTO will send home a list to help students make a holiday shopping list, and then on the day their class goes to the shop, they may bring a few dollars and shop for their loved ones! Volunteers will help them check out and "wrap" their gifts in festive gifts bags. (As soon as I know when our shopping day is, I will let you know!)
This is not a fundraiser - just a fun opportunity for our students! And everyone will be included, even those who may not normally be able to shop. If you are interested in helping out, there was a sign-up sheet that went home in Thursday Folder information but you can also sign-up on the PTO Google Document that they sent out last week! Thank you to the parents who've already signed up! This is going to be a great opportunity for our students to shop for their loves ones this Holiday season! Our classroom's shopping date is Tuesday, December 15th from 1:45 - 2:10!
Upcoming Events and Dates for November
December 1st - PTO Meeting at Klondyke Apartments - (6:00 pm - 7:00 pm)
December 2nd - 2nd Quarter Progress Reports Go Home!
December 4th - High Tech, High Touch In-School Science Field Trip
December 9th - Hour of Code with Mrs. Eggett (Learning all about how to Code) - 9:30am
December 10th - Storytelling Festival at Claxton during the School Day
December 11th - Decorating Gingerbread Houses in our Classroom (1:00 - 2:30)
December 15th - 17th - Claxton Holiday Shoppe (student gift shopping)
December 18th - Holidays Around the World Rotations in the Morning (Festival of Lights)
- Holiday Meal at Lunch in the Cafeteria
- Classroom Holiday Celebration
December 18th - January 4th - Winter Holiday Break - No School