Sep 12-16 Weekly Update

Hello Parents,

Literacy & Writing:  We continue to establish expectations and learn about things good readers and writers do to have success.  We continue to practice silent reading and building stamina, play word work games, and complete word work activities.  In writing, students are working on building stamina.

Math:  Students learned about more complex repeating patterns using flat pieces and cubes.  They learned how to create a t-chart to document growth and pattern identification.  They also learned how to use a calculator this week.

We began our Portland Unit last week and the children seemed to really enjoy it.  We discussed what a compass rose is, map reading, different types of maps and their importance.  Students labeled a map of Oregon.  They learned about the Willamette Valley, the Willamette and Columbia rivers, the Coastal and Cascade mountain ranges, our state borders, and other things about our state.  It was a really fun session.

This week in Literacy & Writing, we will continue to establish expectations, learning what good readers and writers do, and building stamina in both areas.  Looks like this week we're really going to dive into our narrative writing.

In math, we will have our first round of work places this week.  Work places are basically centers where the students rotate to a new activity every 15-20 minutes.  There are games to continue their practice of growing patterns, creating t-charts to represent data and see patterns, Make the Sum (a card game using 10-frames), Addition Facts Challenge game (another card game), and Calculator Patterns.  I'm going to include another center with story problem as I've noticed students need more practice identifying important language  and information in the story.  The story problems will not be a one size fits all as the students are at different levels in their abilities to pinpoint vocabulary and data.  I will have groups rotate with me during this time for explicit instructions and discussion of vocabulary in the story that tell us whether it's an addition or subtraction problem.  Some of the problems will have more than one action we must do in order to arrive at the correct answer.

We will also continue our Portland Unit this week.

I completely forgot to send home the certificates on Friday.  There were no check marks given Friday so everyone had an awesome day!