Hi Everyone-
I hope your Thanksgiving was wonderful and full of great food
and wonderful moments with your family.
This week, we started off with a field trip to the Flynn Theater
to see a play series titled, “The Teacher From the Black Lagoon & Other
Storybooks.” This performance was a musical revue based on favorite books
for young readers. The musical was made up of vignettes created by talented
writers and performed by a cast of five actors. It featured seven picture
books, The Ant and the Grasshopper, Dogzilla, Teacher From the
Black Lagoon, I Want My Hat Back, Grumpy Bird, Lilly’s
Purple Plastic Purse, & Love, Splat. Some of the musicals were
funny, some were poignant, but all were told in a delightfully entertaining in
an accessible way while emphasizing the joy and adventure of reading! Ask
your student which play was their favorite? Or, which book would they
like to read now that you have seen the play?
For the three weeks leading to our Holiday break, we will be
studying "Holiday Traditions Around the World". We will be
looking specifically at Hanukkah, Christmas (in many countries), and Kwanzaa.
We will read stories, sing songs, play games, create works of art, and
watch video clips supporting these special celebrations. If you have any
special project or information you would like to share with us around these
Holidays, please let contact me to set up a time to join us!
As we kick off our holiday studies of celebrations from around
the world, I would like our class to participate in a community service
project. I have a few ideas in mind but welcome any suggestions you may
have. I would love any suggestions you have!! The project will take place
during the last week before winter break. Community service projects help
students understand what it means to be part of a community. Through
these types of projects, they are able to experience two communities.
The first one is the community they were introduced to the
project from, usually the community in which students work and learn, our
classroom, as they undertake the community service learning project. They are
working with each other and as they work on the project, students build
relationships, and become more of a cohesive unit gaining a sense of group
identity.
There is also the community that the students serve. As students
begin to help their school, neighborhood, town or the natural world, they
develop a relationship with that community and a feeling of membership in it.
Students also begin to understand they are a member of many different
communities.
Focusing on other learning in our classroom, our Fundations
learning will focus on our two remaining keyword letter sounds ‘qu’ and ‘z.’
I can’t believe we have learned all of our lower case letters and their
sounds already! The keyword for ‘qu’ as you may have guessed is queen and
the keyword for ‘z’ is zebra. A continuous review of all letters and
sounds is very important for student growth and literacy development. Try
playing the game “I Spy” with letter sounds, such as, “I Spy something that
starts with an ‘a’.” Your student will then need to think of the letter
sound and which objects start with that sound.
During Bridges we will start the week off by continuing and
expanding our study of numbers to 10. Some of our activities will include
matching numerals and quantities, counting forward and backward, reading
numerals, comparing quantities and numbers to determine more and less.
Emphasis is on ordering numbers, using ten frames, number cards, craft sticks
and unifix cubes. You can continue this learning at home by playing games
by matching number cards, similar to the classic Memory game, putting number
cards in order around the house, or something as simple as flash and show the
numbers to each other.
We will turn our attention to Laura Numeroff for our newest
author study. Students were so creative with Mo Willems, I can’t wait to
see what they come up with for our new adventure! If you are unfamiliar
with Laura Numeroff, she is the author who has become famous for her If You
Give A Mouse A Cookie, If You Give a Moose a Muffin, If You Give
a Pig a Pancake, etc. books.
Our Reader’s Workshop focus will continue building on our prior
knowledge and learning from the past 60 days we have been in school. We
will move our focus to tracking our reading by using our pointer finger to
match the words we are reading on the page. As we are continuing our
growth as readers, we will also be learning more about developing our skills as
writers during Writer’s Workshop.
We will continue to look back at our writing pieces of the past
and begin to add more detail to our pictures and stories. When students
are telling you a story at home, try to encourage them to expand their stories
by asking them specific questions or provide them prompts to detail their
thinking.
Winter is here! Yippee! How about that snow and
slush? Please remember hats, mittens, coats, snow pants, and extra shoes
for inside time. LABEL all items please...those black mittens look all
the same to me. If you and your family are in need of some of these
items, please let me know and I will try use some local resources to help out!
I think that is all for now! If I think of anything else I
will keep you posted! Thank you for being such an involved community of
parents!
-Jenn
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