Thank you so much for coming to Curriculum Night this week! It was a pleasure to see you and to meet some of you for the first time. Our school year at Half Day has gotten off to a wonderful start! I am so amazed at the stamina the students showed on the first full day of school. They hung in there and were all fully participating and interacting with their peers and myself. Way to go, Team 106!
We have spent time getting to know one another by playing some games such as 4 corners, student bingo, QR code, math survey, and Me Bags. Ask your child about one of those activities and see if they can explain in more detail about what we did. Some of those activities were captured on film so feel free to browse through the album page to help prompt your child in his/her sharing.
I am so proud of how our classroom is coming together. Each child shows kindness, enthusiasm, and “a willingness to try attitude”! I am so proud of them and am very thankful for your support!
Our reading unit this week, we began with a discussion to the question: How can learning help us to grow? We then discussed what stories could teach us. If you have time at home, ask your child these questions and see what your child’s thoughts are. In class, we read 2 stories called Bruno’s New Home and Wolf. The new vocabulary words that we learned were as follows: ached, concentrate, discovery, educated, effort, improved, inspired, and satisfied. As we were reading the stories, we worked on a strategy called visualizing, where we actively listen to the story and try to form pictures in our minds about what the story is saying. It was fun to discuss/compare our visualization with one another and with the story’s illustrations. Perhaps this is a skill that you can practice in your reading at home, visualizing. It did lead to some giggles in class when students were sharing what they were picturing in their minds as they were reading. We also learned that the genre of these stories is fantasy. Can your child tell you the key components that make these stories fantasy? (has characters, setting, or events that do not exist in real life, animals exhibit human-like characteristics, and teaches a lesson). We also talked about how synonyms are words that have the same meaning and practiced going back into our story to find text support for our answers to the story questions. “Where in the story can I find support to my answer?” This will be an important skill to 3rd graders. The students worked hard in reading this week!
In math, students learned about creating surveys. They each came up with a question to ask their classmates. Next they collected data from their peers, and organized their data in a way that would be easy for others to interpret. The fruits of their labor were on display in our room during Curriculum Night this week. We also talked about the importance of problem solving and how math is used in our world. Students then created a notebook where we glued in the steps used to solve word problems. We practiced reading the question and highlighting the key words. Then we stopped to think about the steps we need to take to solve the problem and to see which math operation(s) would be the most efficient to use in solving the problem. Next we carried out our plan, showed our work, and answered the question in a complete sentence. I emphasized that it is always important to go back and double check that our answer and our math thinking makes sense.
Our first weekly review went home today in the red notebook. As a class, we brainstormed all the things that we have done since the beginning of the school year. Then we talked about the important parts of a letter. Students were eager to write to a family member. The spelling and writing are not corrected in these authentic writing pieces. My hope is that as the school year progresses, students continue to be enthusiastic in reflecting/telling you about his/her week at school and that he/she begins to form detailed paragraphs using descriptive words. If you’re able to, I’m sure it would be fun for the students to read your responses to their writing.
Thank you for a great beginning to our year together. I hope you have a wonderful 3-day weekend with your family.
Reminders:
1. Bring eraser/old sock for your child to use on his/her individual wipe board
2. Bring old t-shirt to be used for art smock
3. Bring ear buds to be kept at school
4. Chorus permission slips for those interested in joining chorus
5. Home Learning logs due, 9/4
6. Book orders due 9/4
7. Orchestra begins on Tuesday. Please bring instruments on appropriate lesson days.
We have spent time getting to know one another by playing some games such as 4 corners, student bingo, QR code, math survey, and Me Bags. Ask your child about one of those activities and see if they can explain in more detail about what we did. Some of those activities were captured on film so feel free to browse through the album page to help prompt your child in his/her sharing.
I am so proud of how our classroom is coming together. Each child shows kindness, enthusiasm, and “a willingness to try attitude”! I am so proud of them and am very thankful for your support!
Our reading unit this week, we began with a discussion to the question: How can learning help us to grow? We then discussed what stories could teach us. If you have time at home, ask your child these questions and see what your child’s thoughts are. In class, we read 2 stories called Bruno’s New Home and Wolf. The new vocabulary words that we learned were as follows: ached, concentrate, discovery, educated, effort, improved, inspired, and satisfied. As we were reading the stories, we worked on a strategy called visualizing, where we actively listen to the story and try to form pictures in our minds about what the story is saying. It was fun to discuss/compare our visualization with one another and with the story’s illustrations. Perhaps this is a skill that you can practice in your reading at home, visualizing. It did lead to some giggles in class when students were sharing what they were picturing in their minds as they were reading. We also learned that the genre of these stories is fantasy. Can your child tell you the key components that make these stories fantasy? (has characters, setting, or events that do not exist in real life, animals exhibit human-like characteristics, and teaches a lesson). We also talked about how synonyms are words that have the same meaning and practiced going back into our story to find text support for our answers to the story questions. “Where in the story can I find support to my answer?” This will be an important skill to 3rd graders. The students worked hard in reading this week!
In math, students learned about creating surveys. They each came up with a question to ask their classmates. Next they collected data from their peers, and organized their data in a way that would be easy for others to interpret. The fruits of their labor were on display in our room during Curriculum Night this week. We also talked about the importance of problem solving and how math is used in our world. Students then created a notebook where we glued in the steps used to solve word problems. We practiced reading the question and highlighting the key words. Then we stopped to think about the steps we need to take to solve the problem and to see which math operation(s) would be the most efficient to use in solving the problem. Next we carried out our plan, showed our work, and answered the question in a complete sentence. I emphasized that it is always important to go back and double check that our answer and our math thinking makes sense.
Our first weekly review went home today in the red notebook. As a class, we brainstormed all the things that we have done since the beginning of the school year. Then we talked about the important parts of a letter. Students were eager to write to a family member. The spelling and writing are not corrected in these authentic writing pieces. My hope is that as the school year progresses, students continue to be enthusiastic in reflecting/telling you about his/her week at school and that he/she begins to form detailed paragraphs using descriptive words. If you’re able to, I’m sure it would be fun for the students to read your responses to their writing.
Thank you for a great beginning to our year together. I hope you have a wonderful 3-day weekend with your family.
Reminders:
1. Bring eraser/old sock for your child to use on his/her individual wipe board
2. Bring old t-shirt to be used for art smock
3. Bring ear buds to be kept at school
4. Chorus permission slips for those interested in joining chorus
5. Home Learning logs due, 9/4
6. Book orders due 9/4
7. Orchestra begins on Tuesday. Please bring instruments on appropriate lesson days.