November 1, 2013
newsletter
happy birthday Diego!
Diego is turning 7 soon and we celebrated him all week. He brought trophies from his golf tournaments and a poster full of photos of his family and his many golf successes. His mom came to school on Thursday and shared delicious cupcakes with us. Thanks Diego!
learning from pumpkins
We used pumpkins as an enrichment tool this week in honor of fall and the end of October- a time from my home town when pumpkins are on everyone's doorstep. Each student estimated how many seeds would be inside two different pumpkins. Then in two groups we took out all the seeds and counted them by 10s. One pumpkin had 310 seeds and the other had 250! We also guessed the circumference of the pumpkin with a piece of string and after measuring it graphed if our guess was "too short," "just right," or "too long." While some students kept their distance from the stringy, slimy, seeds others dove right in. It was a well received experiment and one I definitely took for granted in the U.S.
literacy
As we continued our personal narrative writing this week the students practiced their independence at starting and expanding their own stories. We all created writing folders where we keep our work in progress. This upcoming week we will make final drafts of a story of our choice.
I am sending home one last narrative in the homework. Please help your child to think about their writing and thoroughly check their work. Have them read their story out loud and add details to make it interesting.
math
We worked in small groups this week to continue practicing our frames and arrows counting and introduce the dime. In these groups students took turns working with Mrs Ryder, Miss Sonia, and independently. We played coin top it to compare different amounts of coins. We used number lines and calculators to skip count. We reviewed unit three in our math journals.
Next week we will be making, reading, and answering questions about graphs as well as using dominoes as a tool to count, find odd and even, and compare numbers. These will be the culminating lessons in unit three.
social studies
As a way to learn about goods and services students created "stores" in groups of 3 or 4 chosen friends. Each store provides at least 3 goods and 2 services. Each student is responsible for creating a good and/or service. Next week we will turn the classroom into a mall and we will shop for and sell our own goods and services.
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Email: aryder@isp.edu.pa
Website: isp.edu.pa
Location: ISP