Newsletter 10/30/15

Holey Pumpkin Day was a "pumpkin-ey" success! Thank you so much to those who helped us create our pumpkin lanterns, played games with us and visited! We spent time designing our lanterns and then with the wonderful help of our parents we were able to drill them and light them up while we enjoyed our healthy snacks! We had a great day of learning despite all of our excitement for trick-or-treating! I hope everyone had a fun and safe trick-or-treating night!

Reading

This week we continued to look for descriptive words in our "just right" books but we also extended our thinking to looking for words from our word sorts. We are carefully monitoring our own reading. When we carefully monitor our own reading, we record our thinking on sticky notes and begin to think deeply about each page of our text. This is a learned skill but the students are doing very well so far! We are also beginning to dive into our next unit of exploring non-fiction text!

Writing

We have started writing our narratives and it is so powerful to see how planning our thoughts with a graphic organizer can truly help us with our writing. The students are loving this unit and it is so amazing to watch them write stories with their own personal flare. We have been working on making sure our narratives are complete with important story elements such as- characters, setting, a problem and a solution. Some students are even working on having their story teach a valuable lesson- how awesome is that?!

Math

We just wrapped up Unit 2. We continue to work on explaining and writing our thinking for math problems. Now that we have learned about different strategies to use for addition and subtraction, we are realizing with independence which strategies work best for us. Please remember to practice math facts at home!
Dragonfly News
Parent-Teacher conferences begin this week! I look forward to meeting with all of you! November 5th is an early release day for conferences, please mark your calendars! There is no school Friday, November 6th because it is a teacher workshop day. Thank you again for sending in snacks and helping with Holey Pumpkin Day. We will have other volunteer opportunities coming up! In December we will be making ginger bread houses! Book orders have shipped and should be arriving soon, for those of you who are awaiting orders! November is going to fly by because it is a short academic month so please stay connected with the blog so you don't miss any important dates!

Newsletter 10/23/15

Our year is going so smoothly in 2D! We had such a busy week- so busy that on Thursday afternoon everyone was practically asleep (You'll know which picture was taken on Thursday at dismissal when you check out this week's pictures)! The Halloween Howl is tonight, October 23rd! It should be a howling fun time! Don't forget that we have Holey Pumpkin Day this coming Friday, October 30th. Please have your child bring in their small pumpkin by Thursday, October 29th. Thank you for signing up for conferences. I look forward to meeting with all of you!

Reading

This week in reading we have started looking for adjectives in writing. We are paying close attention to how authors choose to write their books and how they make them interesting for readers. We have been recording the descriptive words we find in our just right books on sticky notes and then we share them with our reading buddies. It is important for us to start recognizing descriptive words as we read so we can begin adding them to our vocabulary and even our writing!

Writing

We have started a new unit in writing. We are beginning to write like authors. We have started working on narratives inspired by the author Kevin Henkes. We have taken time to think deeply about what we want to write about and we have decided our main characters. Starting on Monday we will be using graphic organizers to help organize our thinking before we start writing the first draft of our narrative! We continue to work on the craft of our writing. I can't wait to share your child's writing with you at conferences!

Math

We continue to work on strategies for adding and subtracting. We are also working on explaining our thinking after solving math problems. Explaining our thinking for math is very important. Please encourage your child to explain how they know answers to the problems they solve during homework. We have started writing out our thinking in class and there are usually a few questions that ask for explanations on the homework. We will continue to practice this skill! 

Social Studies

We have begun learning about community. We have started with the basics and discussed what a community is and what makes up a community. To launch this unit we each created our own house. We will continue to learn about our community of Stratham. We are hoping to have guest speakers come into our classroom!

Science

We are starting to learn about rocks and minerals. We will be searching, observing, asking questions, sorting and experimenting with rocks in the upcoming weeks. 

Dragonfly News

Mr. G has set our class up for the Seesaw app. As our technology integrator he is always finding amazing new tools to help us. This app is a school friendly way to start a digital portfolio of your child's work. I will post a link to our blog! There are some important dates coming up in the near future! Here are a list of upcoming events and dates so you can mark your calendars! 

10/23/15- Halloween Howl at 6:30 (doors open at 6pm)
10/29/15- Picture Retakes (Please return your photo packet)

10/30/15- Holey Pumpkin Day & class party

10/30/15- Town of Stratham Trick-or-Treat (5-7pm)

11/5/15- Early Release and Parent Teacher Conferences (12:50pm Dismissal)

11/6/15- No School (Teacher Workshop)

11/11/15- No School (Veterans Day)

11/13/15- PTO Spaghetti Dinner and Bingo Night (6:30pm)

11/18/15- Early Release and Parent Teacher Conferences (12:50 Dismissal)

11/25-27/15- No School (Thanksgiving Break)