Kid, you'll move mountains.
~Dr. Seuss
1/19/2016 1 Comment Off to AsiaWe began our trip to Asia by reviewing the continents we have already studied. I couldn't help but smile at the struggle to remember our continent. "Fort Collins?" "Zach?" "The United States?" "America?" "The USA?" "EARTH!!" I wouldn't say it is a mastered concept yet, but we are working on it! I love how they make me smile everyday!
We will study the largest continent this week and follow next week by traveling down under to Australia. I invited the students to share our continent units at home. If you have any souvenirs to share from Asia or Australia that your child can share safely (nothing expensive or very special) please send it in. Genuine artifacts help our studies come alive! In math, we will be exploring time and money. These are fun concepts to play with at home. Be sure to point out the analogue and digital clocks in your house. Counting money is a fun way to reinforce counting by 5's and 10's. We've been working on that (and 2's) all year and hope to reach mastery by May. The kids are all doing very well with their new reading levels, but the increased difficulty can sometimes cause frustration. To help your child, please have them do a picture walk before reading. This will help with predictions, decoding, and comprehension. Fluency increases the more practice your child gets. It is OK to read the same book to a few different people. It is fun to read when it gets easier and easier every time! Sometimes, your child has memorized the book. That is ok. However, please be sure your child is pointing to the words he or she is reading! Thank you for your support teaching your child to read!
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To culminate our study of Antarctica, the students may dress like penguins tomorrow! Did you know that a group of young penguins is called a kindergarten? We learned that today in Core!
In math, we made 3-Dimensional shapes with marshmallows and toothpicks. Let your child try at home. What fun! We will continue to explore and introduce the concept of addition. I am so impressed with the children's phonics and decoding. They have come so far. I look forward to sharing the DIBELS data, most recent reading levels, and phonics level soon! Next week, we will begin sending home sight word lists. When children can read certain words by sight (quickly, without decoding) their fluency and comprehension increases. The sight word program is self-paced. You can decide how quickly you want your child to progress. Do you want to work on it every night? Do you want to tackle the words a few at a time? Sometimes, it helps to put a rubber band around all but 5-10 words. Work on those until they are mastered and then slowly introduce new words while continuing to work on the mastered words. Please decide what works best for your family and your child. I am here to support you with any questions. In writing, the children have started to write stories. While preparing for a lesson this week, I read about the importance of storytelling in families in our curriculum, Units of Study by Lucy Calkins. I have paraphrased it below: Literary scholar Shirley Brice Heath says the most important thing an adult can do to support a child's literacy is to immerse the child in a culture of storytelling. Parents are wonderful at helping children learn to be storytellers. When asked about the park, a young child may say, "I swinged!" Naturally, the parents asks questions like, "How high? Did Daddy push you?" The child may respond, "Yes, I almost touched the leaves!" To help the child develop the story from here, you can repeat the words to the child in a storyteller's voice, "Wow, daddy pushed you so high on the swing. You were so high that you almost touched the leaves!" This re-creation of the story is essential to learning how a sentence in standard English should sound and supports a child's ability to write stories in a clear and cohesive way. Wow, what a seamless way to help our students develop their writing! I was inspired and plan to do more of that in the classroom and at home with my own children. 1/4/2016 0 Comments Polar AnticsWelcome back! I hope everyone had a fun break filled with family time and laughter. It is always a bit tough to get back in the swing of school. Sticking to routines (bed time, homework, reading time, etc) will help prevent your child this week. Hopefully, the only thing that will be melting is the snow! Until it melts, I suggest sending boots to school, but unless your child wants to roll and sit in the snow, snow pants are not really necessary. Hats and gloves are a great idea. Be sure to put in names in everything!
As part of our Core Knowledge curriculum, we will be learning about a new continent this week, Antarctica (South Pole)! Although it is not a continent, next we will discover the Arctic (North Pole) to compare the two environments. Why is Antarctica a continent and the Arctic is not? Will a polar bear and penguin ever meet in the wild? What other animals brave the freezing weather? In Amplify, we are focusing on vowels, segmenting words, and blending. Vowels are tricky as they sound very similar and don't always "follow the rules." Help your child decode new vowel patterns, but your child should know the standard vowel sounds. To help your child's reading take-off, we will begin sending home sight words. Please watch for the note and lists in folders this week. Spend a short amount of time each night and have fun. Spending too much time to memorize an entire list is not effective. Short repeated practice is more effective and developmentally appropriate. In math, we are introducing two concepts. As a whole group, we are working on three dimensional shapes. In differentiated WIN groups, we are working on addition. Have fun hearing your child explore these concepts at home. Please let me know if you will be out this month. We will be doing some testing with DIBELS, reading levels, phonics levels and math. Mid-year is a great time to monitor progress and re-group if necessary. Have a great week! |
Specials ScheduleMonday: Media
Tuesday: Technology Wednesday: PE Thursday: Music Friday: Art Sight Wordsred, the, like, can, orange yellow, a, I, green, blue, purple, black, we, see, pink, white, gray
Important DatesDecember Archives
February 2020
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