Native Americans and Mo Willems!

Hello Everyone,

I’m sorry this is arriving a little later than usual. I prefer to get this out on Sunday night but life doesn’t always allow for this to happen

Now that Halloween has passed and pumpkins have started to resemble large orange raisins; we are moving on to a new theme, Native Americans. We will be focusing on four regions, Northeast, Northwest, Southwest, and the Plains.

This week, our focus will be on the tribes of the Northeast and Northwest. Each region will have a culminating project component, so if any parents would like to help out for face painting (Plains Native Americans), or making baking soda clay (Southwest Native Americans) please let me know! I would love some extra hands! We will be face painting on 11/15/13 (Next Friday), and making clay pots on 11/20 (Wednesday). Today, we discussed the different regions of North America and what we were going to be learning about each region/tribe. Our focus will be on homes, food, clothing, transportation, and artifacts. We will have numerous opportunities to be creative while exploring Native American history through multiple intelligences and developing skills through the disciplines. Ask your student what legend or story we read today in class. Why were there blue flowers growing after the rains came?

For literacy, we are starting an author’s study with Mo Willems as our focus. Today we read, “Don’t Let Pigeon Drive the Bus” we collaborated and discussed the question, “What could happen if Pigeon did drive the bus?” Students came up with a variety of creative answers. Some of the responses from students were “Pigeon could fall out of the bus, Pigeon could crash into someone,” and “Pigeon could peck at the seats.” Asking questions to “dig deeper” in a text encourages student comprehension and excitement of reading.

In our writing club, we are focusing on storytelling. This aims at preparing us to retell Native American myths and legends. As the weeks progress, we will take those legends and myths and tell our own. Our main focus on storytelling is to have three components; a beginning, middle, and an end. The next time your student tells you a story, ask him/her what the beginning, the middle and the end of their story was. With those prompts, I have found that students are much more thorough when compiling a story.

We are learning three letter sounds this week in Fundations. The letters this week are l, k, and h. I will be sending home a Fundations packet tomorrow, you can reference this packet if you have any questions about letter formation or keyword sounds. It is extremely helpful for your child’s learning that you continue to review their prior letters and sounds at home. If you are in conversation, don’t be afraid to ask them, “What letter sound do you hear at the beginning of the word…(insert word here)?” You may see that he/she confuse ‘k’ and ‘c’, but this is OK. Being able to recognize that words do not end in the letter ‘c’ will come later on in Fundations. If you feel as though your student is ready for this rule, feel free to make them aware of this, we have talked about it in school but it’s not something we are heavily focusing on this early.

Last week you may have heard that we went outside and made exploding ghosts. If your student has mentioned it and wants the recipe, it was a tablespoon of Cornstarch, 1oz of water and 1 Alka-Seltzer Tablet. I will send pictures as soon as the photographer (Mrs. Lasher) sends them to me:) The recipe called for film canisters but as you may imagine, film canisters are difficult to find now that digital cameras and Iphones rule the photography world. Instead of film canisters, we used togo ramekins...Unfortunately, they didn't seal as well as the film canisters would have and the pressure build up made our want-to-be exploding ghosts, become spitting/sprinkler ghosts! Hahaha! The students had so much fun even though their ghosts didn't blast off into the sky like we had planned.

I am waiting on another "photographer" for our costume pictures from last week. I was told by a few parents that the pictures were too small to see everyone's costume. As soon as I have those, I will send them along in an email too.

Thank you very much for being such wonderful parents!