1B Family Update
December 23, 2016
Dear Families
We hope you and your family have a wonderful and warm winter break! We will see you in 2017 on January 3rd! Below is an update on what has been going on the last few weeks in 1B...
In reading, we have continued to work on the retelling of a story. This time, we worked to identify the solution of the story. Students realized that sometimes a character doesn't have to resolve the problem. After winter break we will begin our nonfiction reading unit! So far, we've determined what makes a book nonfiction and next we will start exploring the structure of nonfiction texts.
In writing, we started our nonfiction writing unit! So far, we began planning our All About books by selecting a topic that we feel we are an expert on. A way to support us at home is to have us share our topic with you, discuss the 4-5 details or facts we know about the topic, and why we want others to know about it. This will help us to be ready for when we start writing the stories after break.
In math, we wrapped up our unit on geometry. One thing that students struggled with was remembering that a triangle has 3 sides and 3 corners and that a trapezoid has 4 sides and 4 corners. If you have students draw you a trapezoid at home, remind them that we have trapezoid-shaped tables in our classroom. We began our unit on place value, exploring how many ones, tens or even hundreds there are in numbers. For example, in the number 35, there are 3 tens and 5 ones. You can practice this at home by giving your child a number and having them tell you how many tens and ones are in it. Then, have them count to that number by tens and ones. For example, to get to 35, you would count the 3 tens first then switch to ones by saying "10, 20, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35." We have learned that making groups of tens is an efficient or quicker way to represent and count numbers. Having a strong understanding of place value will help us add and subtract two-digit numbers with regrouping when we return from break!
Amy Czaja and Kendra Thomas
Materials needed for classroom: Maps
Thinker student of the Week: Oola
- How you been a thinker is by solving problems right away like today when we were using the base-10 blocks, our table was very loud and she tried to calm us down a little bit.
- Oola has been a thinker by thinking of people's bodies and feelings like if someone fell, she would say are you okay.
- How Oola has been a thinker is because she is thinking for herself and not just going right up to a teacher. She's deciding if a problem is a teacher-sized problem or a student-sized problem.
- You have been a thinker when I was at recess you thought about how I felt and I felt lonely because I was sitting down on a bench. She came up to me and asked do you want to play with us?
- Oola has been a thinker. Me and Oola sometimes play a little bit, and she is a thinker by stopping talking with me.
- If someone had fell down but no one saw, but she realized the person fell, she would go over and ask if they were okay.
Classroom Photos
3D shapes
Free time reading
Trip around the world
Vietnam homes
A visit from Christopher Silas Neal
Read aloud
Illustrations
Guided reading
Lit Block
Place value
Jasper's Share
Exploring Base-10 blocks
Read Aloud
Recess at Metro-Tech
Town Hall
Constantinople Photos
Time travel
Welcome to Constantiople
the 8th floor
Town Hall
2nd grade art work
3rd grade writing
Library Cards
Anytime Anywhere Library Cart
Constantinople
Writing Celebration Photos
ANYTIME | ANYWHERE What are you reading?
Two traveling libraries have been created to support our Anytime Anywhere Reading Initiative.
Please Note: Your student may bring home a book with a red or yellow dot taped to the binding. When he or she returns the book to the cart, another book may be checked out. Special books have been purchased for these libraries but have not yet arrived. (We’re making due with overflow from classroom libraries until the curated selection arrives!)
Students track their reading using library cards. Each time they read a book, they write down the title and stamp their library card at one of our vintage time machines. They more they read, the further back in time we can travel!
Vacation is a great time to “Read, read a book!”
M A N Y - T H A N K S - T O - A L L who helped make our trip to Constantinople so magical!