Hi,
We had a marvelous first week of school. We practiced routines and expectations but began some great learning as well.
Reading-We are working on reading longer and stronger. That means spending more time accurately reading books at our reading level that interest us. I have been so impressed with the amount of time we have been able to read and stay focused this week. We have increased our time each day. On Monday we read for 10 minutes, discussed what we read, and then read for 10 more minutes. Today we read for 43 minutes! While the children read, I am doing individual reading assessments and will soon be working with small groups or having individual reading conferences.
Writing-Vocabulary is a big focus in each subject area. We learned the word persevere and then applied it to a reflection writing entry about a Wilma Rudolph quote. "The potential for greatness lives within each of us." The children wrote about times that they worked hard to reach their potential and had to persevere during that process. We will continue to work on revising these entries. We also started an acrostic poem that describes us. We learned about similes, metaphors, and exploding the moment. We will be applying these writing techniques to Important Poems that we write about ourselves that we will begin writing on Tuesday.
Math-Our class is full of mathematicians! We solved a challenging math problem and had tons of unique and effective strategies for the same problem. Logic problems are fun for us to solve and we enjoyed solving one about children trying out for sports teams. Most of us are very good at computing addition and subtraction facts. We had fun working with large numbers this week also. Thank you for helping with the Large Number Facts homework. We learned many random and interesting facts. (ex. Taylor Swift's salary, prices of many mansions and sports cars, the number of micro-organisms in our intestines, volume of salvia produced in a person's lifetime, the weight of the largest Rice Krispy treat, and many more!) We used base ten materials to represent numbers up to the thousands. To try to visualize larger numbers, we used butcher paper and cut out 10 thousand cubes which made a 10,000 long strip, then put 10 of the 10,000 strips together to show 100,000 squares. Next we put ten 100,000 squares together to show 1,000,000! We taped our display in the hallway across from the counselor's office. Come and see it! Next week we will continue to work with ordering and problem solving using large numbers.
Social Studies-The Texas photos brought in by the class are wonderful. We each shared our photos and found the locations on the map. Then wrote about our photo. They are displayed outside our classroom.
Science-We started working on some science safety things today. We will be continuing learning about science safety and tools next week.
Please return papers from the big envelope ASAP. Thanks!
If you have a minute, please go to the counselor's page on our website and fill out a survey. http://teacherweb.com/TX/ForestCreekElementary/Leitch/apt1.aspx
Thank you for the wonderful letters describing your child. It is so great to read them and learn more about how we can work together to challenge your child and help him/her grow this year.
Reminders:
Tuesday, Sept. 4-Decorated Writer's Notebooks due
Thursday, Sept. 6 - Back to School Night at 6:00pm
Friday, Sept. 7-Spirit Day-Wear green, purple, or FCE shirt
Monday, Sept. 10-College Day-Wear a shirt from your favorite college
Tuesday, Sept. 11-PTA meeting, Watchdogs kick-off
Friday, Sept. 28- Book Orders due
Have a safe and fun long weekend! Your child should read and record, decorate his/her writer's notebook, and practice math facts.
Let me know if you have any questions or concerns.
Sincerely,
Pam Bartholomew
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