It was so wonderful meeting with all of you at parent teacher conferences. I loved being able to share with you the accomplishments your kiddos are making as well as areas we are working on!
A reminder that our food drive for school lasts the rest of this week so if you have any items to donate have your child bring them in no later than Friday.
Here is what is happening in the classroom:
Math - We are working hard on story problems. We are working on visualizing what is happening in the story problem so we know what information we have and what information we are looking for. This will help us decide if we are looking for a missing partner or a missing total. We will do lots of practice and work with story problems as these can be tricky for kids.
Reading - We are working on understanding characters in our books. This is one of my favorite units to teach because it allows us to explore and get up close and personal with the characters we are reading about. Our focus will be on how characters feel and how they change throughout the story.
Writing - We are beginning to write opinion/persuasive letters. We are taking this process slow; first learning about opinions vs. facts. We then learned why giving reasons for our opinions is important. We have been using an organizer to help us organize our thoughts so we can transition our thoughts into a letter. I apologize in advance because you may start to get letters asking for things around the house like movie night, ice-cream night, maybe a room to be repainted, etc. Please feel free to write a letter back to your kiddos :)
Social Studies - We are covering our economics unit right now. The terms we will be learning are: needs/wants, goods/services, producers/consumers, scarcity, and opportunity cost. We will be taking the next few weeks to learn these concepts.
I would like to clarify homework. Homework is a way for me to keep you in the loop with what we are learning in math. It is also a way for kids to practice the concepts we are learning in class. I send homework home most weekends, but not every weekend. Typically after we have a math test I do not send homework home because we haven't really started a new unit yet. I don't grade homework nor do I check to make sure everyone has turned it in. Please use the homework how you see fit for your child.
I can't believe how close Thanksgiving is! Our break is from November 21 - 25. I am planning on doing a small Thanksgiving feast with the kids on Tuesday, November 20. It will be a time that the kids and I can gather around together and share some snacks and talk about what we are thankful for. I like doing this because we are a family here at school and this is a way to share in a tradition that families do together. I look forward to spending time like this with the kiddos.
I am planning on placing a scholastic book order before Christmas. If you would like to order any books, please do so by December 7. If any of these books will be a Christmas present, please let me know and I will get them to you in an envelope I can send home with your child or you can pick up in the office once they arrive. If you have any questions, please let me know. I will put the link to Scholastic Book Clubs under the resources tab. Our class code is H2RKD.
I think that is all for now! Have a great week!