October 7, 2011

What a beautiful week!  We needed to have a week full of sun and warmth.

This week was full of learning. 

This was our first week of reading groups.  Each child goes to a different reading group.  They are small groups focusing on making words, reading strategies, writing strategies and much more.  We added the making words this year to help students with understanding letter sounds and the combination of letter sounds.  They are given 6-8 letters and they are guided in making different words with the letters they are given.  The second part is creating rhyming words to some of the words that were created with the letters.  Then, the students will transfer the words onto paper as an assessment that will help me evaluate if they understand the concepts of that day. 

We are now in our third week of our making meaning program.  This week we focused on making personal connections with the text.  We read the story Jamaica Tag-Along.  Many of the students had detailed stories related to what we were reading.

We are half way done with the second unit in math.  I introduced the triangle cards to day.  These are very similar to flashcards.  There will be some to cut out in this week’s homework.  We have been focusing on different strategies when adding and subtracting. One of the main math tools that we will be using is the number grid.  This is a great tool to help your child figure out different math problems from just regular adding to adding money.  I will be putting a number grid in the homework binders for an “at home” tool.

In science, we have been investigated insects and watching the couple adopted insects in our classroom.  In addition to the science program at our school, we decided to have a field trip to visit the Environmental Interpretive Center at the University of Michigan-Dearborn.  While we are there we will be finding insects in their natural habitat.  We will also be looking at aquatic insects in the natural ponds on the campus.

The field trip will be on October 25, 2011.  We will be leaving at 9:00 and we should be returning around 2:30-3:00.  In order to make this field trip, we will need parent volunteers to drive students from the school to U of M-Dearborn.  There is no cost to the field trip.  We will send home more details as the date becomes closer.

Enjoy the beautiful weather this weekend and I will see you on Monday morning!