Hello Families!
I hope you're staying dry on this wet Sunday! Here is the news for this week...
FRIDAY, NOV. 1st: Is FAMILY SING and FIELD TRIP FRIDAY. Family Sing will start at 8:35 and run through to around 9:00/9:10. Please join us! Siblings welcome!We are planning on taking a walking trip to the Farmers Market on 97th St. between Columbus and Amsterdam (the one by Whole Foods.) Right now the forecast is for rain but we will make a determination either Thursday night or Friday morning if we need to cancel. We plan on leaving school at 9:20, and then walk through the market investigating when things were planted and when they were harvested. We should make it back to school by 10:15. PLEASE JOIN US if you can! The more grown ups the better! Thank you. NO SCHOOL FOR KIDS ON NOV. 5th: Only for teachers and staff.
HALLOWEEN: Just a reminder that kids are not allowed to wear costumes to school on Halloween.
THANK YOU: We have enough paper grocery bags now - thanks so much.
WHAT WE ARE UP TO:
We finished up our first unit of phonics and will be heading into a new unit called Word Scientists. We are now experts on the first letter of our name and we are each included as a tool/support for our peers if they should need our help writing or hearing our first letter (that's what the signs on the back of the chairs are for.) We are going to use our alphabet charts and the alphabet song to focus on letter recognition, sounds and then the sorting of letters by how they are formed. For example, we are going to be looking closely at letters that have holes and letters that don't. We will also be matching pictures with first letter sounds and will be sure to make it all fun!
In show and tell writing we are finishing up using the items we brought from home and kids can bring those back home after tomorrow. This week we are being brave spellers! We are learning how to stretch out each sound we hear in a word to attempt to write down those letters. There are 3 steps to being a brave speller: Stretch out the word.Use tools (like alphabet charts and the word wall.)Don't give up. (This one is my favorite rule!) We are ready to start learning about our reading Super Powers! We will discover that we actually have super powers just like Wonder Woman or Spider Man! As readers, we have the power to look, point, and read everything we can! This week we are going to summon our powers and unleash our Pointer Power! Take that!! We are also celebrating the end of our Old Favorites reading unit by creating costumes from a character we've read about. We will start that project this week!
In math we are discussing how to keep track of our counting when we can't move what we are counting (like pictures for example.) This is also teaching the ordering numbers. Once we have learned about this concept we will work on some dot to dots. Fun! We will then be working with Counting Collection Bags. Students will have a bag with a certain number of objects inside and they will be counting/keeping track of the number of items. They will do this work independently but will be helping their classmates double check their numbers.
Stacie will come this week and continue her work through The Golden Rule. We are also going to be continuing our social studies work by starting a new project in which we ultimately will be writing an All About (insert friend's name here) Book. We will need to interview one another, practice listening to one another, and then will create this artifact. I will be choosing partners for the kids. We will also focus on being inclusive when we play. We will see how aware we are of the kids around us. Is everybody a part of the play? Is everybody actively engaged? Are we sure that everybody is feeling included? And are we making sure everybody has what they need to enjoy the playing?
We learned about our Weather Wednesdays Journals last week and this Wednesday will be working on them in the morning when we arrive in school. We are also learning about what seasonal means and what harvest means. Our Farmers Market trip supports our science learning as well as learning about our school neighborhood.
We finished Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing! Ask your kids about the ending! We will start a new chapter book this week but it's a secret for now!
Have a wonderful week! Love, Lynn