Great Week!

Hi,

We had a great week!

Reminders: Turn in fundraiser forms. Donate clothing and books. Sign up for conferences, if you haven’t already. Pen Pals will come on Friday, October 11.

Reading: We are working on reading expository text, looking for text features, and writing summaries and responses about what we read. Our responses include connections, predictions, questions, thoughts, feelings, and opinions. We don’t just say that we like or dislike something but give reasons to support our opinions. We are also finishing up our book club books and will begin new books and new groups by the end of next week.

Writing: Gathering entries for personal essays is our focus. One difference between personal narratives and personal essays is that narratives are about small moments and essays are about a big idea. We observed in a 2nd grade PE class and the PreK class at recess. We wrote what we saw and heard with details then tried to stretch our thinking by writing a big idea. This makes me realize… was a common sentence starter for us. We also read Fly Away Home by Eve Bunting which is a realistic fiction story of a boy and his father living in an airport. We discussed homelessness and wrote some things we noticed and our opinions about that. Our Time for Kids newspaper had an article about chimps being retired to a sanctuary after being used to test medicines for humans. Many children felt strongly about this and wrote their thoughts and opinions. We had a severe weather drill this week and some of the kids wrote their observations and big ideas about that drill. We will continue noticing things and stretching our thinking as we gather more entries then will choose one to take through the writing process and write as an essay.

Math: We finished up our review of multiplication and division strategies but will revisit them often throughout the year. We took an assessment on Thursday and finished it on Friday. This assessment will help me focus some small groups for math and begin more reteaching and extension groups as needed. Next week, we will begin looking at patterns and algebraic reasoning. Continue to practice math facts and use Think through Math at home. Most of the kids know many of their facts and all of them can use a strategy to figure out the answer to a fact but we need the kids to be more automatic with their fact recall. This makes working with higher numbers much easier. Talk to your child about their strategies for solving multiplication and division problems.

Science: Changes in matter from heat has been our topic of discussion this week. We visited some websites that simulated melting, boiling, and freezing. We made online diagrams of the effects of increasing and decreasing heat in solids, liquids, and gases. We also did some fun experiments with insulators. We put ice in several bags then wrapped each of the bags with a different insulator like flannel, denim, bubble wrap, paper towels, dishtowels, sponges, and a sock. Then we put the items outside in the sun for about 15 minutes. We determined that the sock was the best insulator. We also put ice and salt in half of a soda can. The outside of the can became freezing cold and a thin layer of ice formed on the outside of the can. We realized that the cold can decreased the heat energy around the can and turned the water vapor back into liquid which then began to freeze because the can was so cold. Next week we will continue talking about matter and also mixtures and solutions.

Social Studies: The characteristics of the regions of Texas were reviewed using the textbook. We will apply the characteristics of the regions to our study of the Native Americans who lived in each region. What resources did the tribe use? How did they adapt to their environment?

Thank you for sharing your child with me and let me know if you have any comments or concerns.

Sincerely,
Pam