This Week at Winsor
Our highlights for this week.
Please Take a Few Moments to Review Our Week and Stay Current With Upcoming Events
Keeping Up With Kindergarten
Dear Families,
It has been a great two weeks! Students have continued to make nice progress on learning sight words and letter formation. Please continue to send back those sight word papers! Thank you for all that you do at home!
During Reading and Writing Workshop, Mrs. Lakeway’s class continued their study of Making Connections. We read a few stories that lead to great discussions about what to do if you are feeling angry. We read the story, Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No, Good Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst and A Bad Day by Kristen Hall. Students made different types of connections (text to text & text to self), recorded them and discussed them. During writing, students worked with a partner and answered the question: What advice would you give Alexander to help him have a better day? This also helped introduce how to answer questions in complete sentences. Students turned the question around and wrote down advice like, “I would tell Alexander to use a strategy like hand squeezes or get up and move around.” Another tip was “ I would tell Alexander to get a hug from his mom. That makes us feel better!” It was so nice to hear a 5 year old’s suggestion!
Ms. Staruch’s class has continued their unit on the Savanna. However, this week we shifted our focus from reading and writing non-fiction books about the Savanna to reading and writing fiction books! We read some books where the setting of the story was the Savanna or the characters were Savanna animals. We then wrote our very own fiction books that took place in the Savanna. We made sure that our stories all have a beginning, middle, and end. It was so much fun to get to write some silly, make believe stories!
Ms. Staruch’s class also began using our pencil boxes this week. Students were very excited to have their very own supplies!A big thank you to all parents who sent in crayons and other classroom supplies!
Math workshop was also busy! We continued to learn about addition. Students explored different strategies to help them answer addition problems. Some strategies included using manipulatives, drawing dots, using a number line and saying the bigger number in your head and counting up! Students did a great job with these. This last week, we focused on fact fluency and answering the addition problems quickly. We also learned the +1, and +0 tricks.
Last week’s/This week’s Fundations Letters: M,N,O P Q, R
Last week’s/This week’s Sight words: me, this, say, she, away, not
Learning and Fun in Grade One!
We began our week in Social Studies, by reading nonfiction books about Martin Luther King, Jr. and his dream for equality. The children were quite surprised and amazed to hear that there were segregated schools, playgrounds, bathrooms and water fountains over fifty years ago. Our study on MLK continued throughout the week.
It was “Up, Up and Away in grade one” this past week. Our first grade scientists also became engineers. You may ask - how could that be???? Each student designed and tested their very own parachute. Students learned about air resistance and how a parachute interacts with air. It was an experiment that was enjoyed by all. Be sure to ask your child how they designed their parachutes.
Math is becoming a bit challenging for some of our first graders. This week we learned the concept of ten more and ten less using place value. We have also been comparing numbers to 100 using symbols to denote greater than >, less than <, and equal to =. These symbols can be tricky for our first graders, so be sure to review them at home along with ten more and ten less. A quick tip is to remember for these symbols is – the alligator mouth always eats the larger number. A 120 chart will be sent home in their homework folder as a resource for them to use.
As the flu season is in full swing, we are washing the desks and spraying with Lysol each day to keep the germs at bay. We hope all our Winsor families stay well and healthy this season.
Please Note: The 100th Day will be celebrated in first grade on February 6, 2019. More information will follow.
What's New in Grade Two
As readers and writers, we have started a research project on animals. Our whole grade two team generated a list of text features that can help us gather information. With partners, we worked on a task titled My Book of Research Techniques. This informational packet provided us with important facts about dolphins. We looked closely at photographs, important words/phrases, labeling illustrations, identifying the very important points with sticky notes. and creating a sketch based on the information that was written in a summary.
Please ask your second grader what they learned about dolphins.
Individually, we listed our top 3 choices of animals that we would like to research on our own. Animals were assigned and partnerships were created. Next week, we will start using various text resources (informational text from our classroom and our school library, National Geographic magazines, Highlights magazines, Weird, but True fact books, and more). In addition, we will gather information from websites, such as getepic.com and National Geographic for Kids. All of the facts that we gather will be translated onto an animal research organizer.
If your child would like to research more about their animal at home, please encourage them to jot down some of the facts that they learned.
Thank you for all that you do at home!
THRILLS IN THIRD
Our third graders continue to work hard and are impressing us more and more each day! In Math we have been working on applying our multiplication skills to the concept of Area. Students were responsible for remembering five different skills related to finding the area of a shape. They worked on several methods for solving these complicated tasks and have made great progress. All third graders are also working diligently on mastering their multiplication tables, please keep working on fact fluency at home!
Our focus for writing continues to be Informational text. After learning the structure of an “expert” writing piece, the students were charged with writing a three-paragraph essay on a topic that they know a great deal about. They used google docs to practice their typing skills and complete their final copies. We will be working on improving these writing pieces as we learn more about informational writing. Students have also been writing text based responses to questions about different natural disasters, our focus in Reading and Science. Students are doing a wonderful job citing evidence and remembering the structure they need to use to create a solid paragraph.
Our third graders are also doing an excellent job reading, researching and integrating our Science and Reading unit on Weather and Climate. Small groups of students are researching different natural disasters and working on utilizing and strengthening their reading skills as they focus on specific research questions. They are doing very well navigating a variety of informational texts to find the information needed and are making great connections between our Science investigations and our research. We are looking forward to continuing our exploration of topics next week.
Have a wonderful weekend!
Learning More in Grade 4
This week students worked very hard in all subject areas!
In reading, they read about food webs and wrote main idea and detail paragraphs. They closely read a short paragraph and then were asked to identify the main idea and details of the paragraph. A lot of modeling was done, and then they were asked to apply what they learned in their own writing.
I math we finished up chapter 5 this week, which was all about two digit by two digit multiplication. Some students still need more practice with this concept. We will keep at! Now, we are off the division!
In writing, we have been modeling the recipe for writing a five paragraph essay. Students will be required to write their own essay later this month. First, we read two informational articles and then made a four square plan, and now we are typing the essay.
As you can see, students have been working very hard!
The Fabulous Five
In Reading Workshop, we have begun our Poetry Unit. In this unit, the students will learn different forms of poetry, how figurative language is used in poetry, and how readers of poetry consider multiple elements in a poem, including symbolism and the author’s intent to synthesize meaning. As students worked in their guided reading groups, they read and analyzed a collection of poems and were required to notice how the poem was organized and structured. Students also wrote in their journals and recorded if any poem had rhyme and rhythm, free verse, quatrains, and figurative language. Ask your child to share with you some of the poems we read in class and explain what the structure, sound, and meaning of the poem is.
This week, the students extended their study of decimals to include multiplication. They realized that when multiplying decimals, they begin by multiplying as they would with whole numbers and then applying place value concepts and patterns to identify where to place the decimal point in the product. The students were challenged to use the concepts they have learned thus far to solve multi-step problems involving decimal operations
In Writing Workshop, we are concluding our biography unit. The students are finalizing their written pieces by editing and revising with their FCA (Focus Correction Area) chart. We are looking forward to learning all about the legendary and interesting people they researched as they present their biographies.
Congratulations to Samantha Sanders, our 2019 Winsor Spelling Bee champion! Samantha did an amazing job, as did Luca Savastano, our runner up. Both Samantha and Luca will represent Winsor at the district bee. If either Samantha or Luca is unable to attend the bee, Christian Snowman will be our alternate participant. Great job to everyone! We are so proud of the composure and poise all of our participants demonstrated.
Winsor's Got Talent Update
We have 27 acts that are registered to perform, ranging from singing, dancing, comedy, science, karate and a few surprises! We are looking forward to this fun-filled evening!
All performer's families should have received two emails:
- Rehearsal is Wednesday, 1/30 at GMS. Details were included in each email regarding the assigned 30 minute rehearsal slot. Please come prepared to discuss your act with the organizers so we can verify music (MP3 format), length of performance, equipment needed, etc. We promise to get you in & out ASAP!
- Invitation Details for Attendees were emailed this past Wednesday. Please get those forms back by Monday, January 28th so we can determine the attendance level and possibly open the invite to other members of the school community.
Any questions please contact Barbara Murthy at BarbKM6@gmail.com.
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Thank you everyone! Have a wonderful weekend