September 21

We are hard at work learning and practicing behaviors for our Daily Five. Today we made our chart for Work on Word Work, and then I showed them the many choices we have for doing word work. After that, we took time to practice. We also reviewed our Read to Self and Work on Writing I charts. We practiced them for a short time also. They are really "getting" the idea of what they need to do to make this work for everyone in the classroom! We even talked about how this is like our monthly theme of TEAMWORK.

I hope to get to each reading group this week. That means the kids will have to work independently while I am with each group so we don't have interruptions. Part of this learning is also good manners - not interrupting ( unless it's an emergency.) Students will not necessarily "stay" in the same groups. Once they've progressed, they can move to a different group. The idea is to learn at each student's level.

This week we are working on possessive pronouns, compound words, long e sounds, ou and ow sounds, and synonyms.

In Math, we continue to work on simple addition and how it relates to subtraction. Please practice the fact families with your child. This can be done in the car, while setting the table, doing dishes, etc. We practice this way: If I say 3+5, kids need to say 3+5=8, 5+3=8, 8-5=3, and 8-3=5.


In Science, we used the balance to learn about mass. Thursday we will do the Chapter Review.

Social Studies is our map study continuing from last week. My kids are really pretty good at this! This week our Weekly Reader is on Hispanic Heritage Month.

In Religion, we read about God's Stories and related this to family stories of our own. They learned the Bible is divided into the Old Testament ( before the birth of Jesus), and the New Testament (after Jesus was born). They've also learned that Psalms are prayers and songs and most were written by David.

Another new and fun game to learn spelling words: We played Sparkle! They love it! It's also excellent for listening skills as they need to listen to what the person before them says. Ask them about this game!

Have a good week!