In the folders today:
*Seesaw scan code-the old codes still work, but I thought it would be a good idea to send one out JUST IN CASE. Please tuck it away safely in case your child ends up at home. If you have any device that your child can use to access Seesaw, I can send work home through it. *Updated class directory *Book orders for January. If you are interested in ordering, please submit orders (online or paper) by Thursday, January 14. Online ordering: https://orders.scholastic.com/GRHHL We've been working hard on the /th/ sound with practice on our white boards, in our poetry notebooks and doing several activities in Seesaw. Spelling test tomorrow! We finished unit 4 in math (finally-it is 20 lessons). We'll have a fun day with Splash Math tomorrow and then we are going to start a mini unit on telling time next week before starting the next unit in our math books. Our focus prayer this month is the "Hail Mary". We started a mini book today and will work on it tomorrow. Happy New Year! I am so excited to see what 2021 brings for our wonderful class! It already brought us a new student! :) We welcomed another Oliver to our class this morning. He is a welcome addition. The boys are very excited that there are now 8 boys, closing in on the 9 girls.
Spelling lists are in folders. Please remember that you can ALWAYS move your child to the opposite list if it is a better fit. HOWEVER, you need to email me or send a note so I know about the change. We are working on the 2 /th/sounds (voiced and unvoiced). I learned how to reorder the word lists on Spelling City! Now, when you go to the site, you will find the main list and challenge list at the very top. https://www.spellingcity.com/users/jenniferwetschka I FINALLY loaded photos onto our Shutterfly site. Yikes! Each email address that was entered on the orange Shutterfly sign up page at the beginning of the year should've received an invitation to the page. Please let me know if I need to check on an email address. We celebrated Myla's half birthday with her today. We hope your real birthday in July is AWESOME! We worked on tens and ones in math today. It was a little rough at first remembering how they worked, but most quickly remembered. The book Humphrey's First Christmas was read to facilitate a discussion about the Epiphany. The pictures are beautiful and at times quite funny. ***Dress for Christmas concert recording tomorrow!***
Today is the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. We went to a special Mass at 10:00. We sat behind the 7th grade which really helped with understanding when to kneel! They did a nice job leading us and showing us what we need to do next week when it is our turn! We started our math lesson reviewing the concept of each hour having a room on the clock. It was a little trickier today than yesterday. We'll work on it a little more before time to the hour is introduced. Our Scholastic News focused on needs and wants. The main text for reading this week introduced us to the biography genre. Did you know that your child should be able to tell you what "genre" means? When you read tonight ask your child and see if she or he can identify the genre of what you are reading. We mainly know fiction and informational text-aka non-fiction, but are starting to work on the sub-genres of realistic fiction and fantasy. We had some time working with our STEM bins to end our day. ***Spelling lists went home on Friday. Words are up on Spelling City. Test on THURSDAY this week.***
***Wednesday is a special dress up day. Your child should wear dressy and/or "Christmassy" clothes for recording for the Christmas concert.*** I brought in all of my cacti last week and today. I was able to show the children how their little cactus could grow over time. They've really enjoyed learning about this type of plant. We started learning about clocks in math. Today we learned about analog and digital clocks and the features of each. We also learned about each hour having its own room on the clock and made a clock room poster. Our read aloud story in reading was "The Little Red Hen". We talked about different versions of the story. During religion we learned about the Feast of the Immaculate Conception (church tomorrow, not Wednesday), Our Lady of Guadalupe and Juan Diego and started a new chapter in religion. ***We have a new member of our SWS family! Congratulations to the Graf family on the arrival of their baby boy on Monday!***
***Book orders are due on Friday. Online ordering: https://orders.scholastic.com/GRHHL*** **Friday is an out of uniform day for a special "Hoodie Day" to help us celebrate this joyful time of year. Your child may wear her/his favorite hoodie along with any other school appropriate clothing. We will watch a holiday movie at some point during the day.*** We are reading Advent Storybook each day after lighting the candles on our Advent wreath. There are 24 stories to take us through December. The children really seem to enjoy it year after year. Ask your child about Benjamin Bear and what he has found in his Advent calendar (so far the star with a tail and an eagle). We are learning about statements and character traits in reading. We read the book The Word Collector. Over the past 2 days we have worked on a popsicle stick nativity project. Every student in the school is making one and they will be on display soon. We can't wait to see what other students have created! We are working on understanding tens and ones in math. Place value is a tricky concept! Wishing you many blessings this Advent season! Come, Lord Jesus!
We are moving to 2 spelling lists this week-the main list and the challenge list. You will find information in your child's folder. I circled the list assigned, but you are welcome to change your child to the opposite list-just send me an email to let me know. We are working on short o this week. The words are NOT on Spelling City this week. I'm not sure what happened last year, but they aren't there and if I add them now, it will mess up the order. If you happen to lose the list, just email me and I'll send another. We started working on the make a 10 strategy for addition today. Some children get the hang of it and some do not and that is OK! We want them to use strategies that work for them. We'll practice it here and there. Our class is participating in the "Adopt a Cow" program from Discover Dairy. We will learn about a farm and adopt a cow from that farm. Our farm is the Tauer Farm in Hanska, MN. We "met" the farm family today and saw a short video about dairy farms (in general-not our specific farm). We worked on our Promise which introduced the season of Advent and lit the first candle on our Advent wreath (that was an adventure-my matches are probably 20 years old and did not light and I couldn't figure out how to use the lighter I borrowed!). ***December book order forms are in folders. Online and paper orders are due on Friday, December 4. Online ordering: https://orders.scholastic.com/GRHHL***
It was so wonderful to have ALL 16 children in class today. It's been a VERY long time! We are working on understanding 10s and 1s in math. Ask your child what was done in art class today. We started a new chapter book series called "Zoey and Sassafras". We are reading book 1-Dragons and Marshmallows. So far the children are really enjoying it. Ask your child who the characters are so far (Zoey, her cat Sassafras, and her mom). I read the book 'Twas the Night Before Thanksgiving. After we worked on identifying the story structure (characters, setting, problem along with beginning, middle, and end). We worked on ABC order. I did the first 6 with the children and then had them do the last 6 alone. We are learning about Advent in religion. We celebrated Vidya's birthday with her today! Many wishes for the happiest of days, Vidya!
We were able to attend church this morning. The children did a great job. They are behaving so well even though I am sitting far away from them. Very impressive! Our walk to food shelf went quite well. No complaints about heavy bags or being too cold. We had fun observing our world around us. We've been listening to some turkey stories the past few days. Yesterday I read No Turkey for Thanksgiving about a little girl from Vietnam who believes she MUST have turkey for Thanksgiving or else it isn't really Thanksgiving. She is very disappointed to have duck for dinner, but she gets a surprise on Monday when she finds out what her classmates ate! Today I read A Plump and Perky Turkey which was followed up with a turkey guided drawing on BIG paper. The children couldn't believe they were making such a big drawing. We finished up unit 3 in math today. Yesterday we learned the "Skippy Frog" strategy for tricky words-say the first sound (Lips the Fish) and skip the word and see if it pops into your head when you reread the sentence. When they apply their strategies (often multiple strategies for one word) they are getting good at decoding tricky words! We are learning about synonyms during reading this week. We're learning a cute song to help us remember what "synonym" means. ***MENU CHANGE: Wednesday's main dish will be a hot ham and cheese sandwich, NOT a ham and turkey wrap***
***Remember to send food shelf donations tomorrow or Wednesday. We will walk them over to the food shelf on Wednesday morning.*** ***Spelling lists are in folders today. Test on FRIDAY.*** We continue to focus heavily on word problems in math. We are getting pretty good at knowing when the problem gives us a part and a total OR a part and a part. There are a few types of problems that consistently trick us up, but we'll get there! We finished our drawings for submission to the NP Times for the special holiday section. Some children chose to bring their practice drawing home. Our teacher read aloud from the reading series was a nonfiction piece about prairie dogs. I like to partner it with the VERY FUN fiction book The Great Fuzz Frenzy. The children seemed to love it as much as I do. I just realized I forgot to ask them about the author's purpose. If you get a chance, ask your child what the author's purpose was in writing the book (answer-to entertain). For our religion lesson we started a Brother Francis video about the saints. We will finish it tomorrow. I hope your child told you about the spelling list in the green folder today. Yes, the words are easy. This is intentional. If you ever misplace the list or your child is absent, you can go to https://www.spellingcity.com/users/jenniferwetschka to find the current list. You need to go to the bottom of the list and scroll up. I have added a link page with this link as well. I will date the lists with the test date as we get to them. I decided to try leaving the lists this year instead of deleting them all and having to recreate them.
Our focus in math is on subtraction word problems. We started learning about Veteran's Day. Our newest tricky word strategy is "Chunky Monkey" where we look for chunks we know and small words within the larger word. We are starting to learn about baptism in religion. The children seem to be really enjoying our newest chapter book, Ready Freddy-Tooth Trouble. They especially like hunting for the word "fin" which is hidden in each illustration. |