Hello Families,
We sure packed in a lot of great learning into our short four day week! It's been exciting for me to reflect back over the last six weeks and to see how far they have come.
We are in full swing with the routines in the Starfish classroom. When teachers tell parents that it takes six weeks to establish routines, they are not joking. This week I really felt we made a break through! The kids are coming together with becoming independent, collaborative, can follow through on routines! **YAY**
You will see in their Circle Notebook entries this week, the writing growth from today to the last entry is amazing! They are writing more and more and are so excited about their learning in the classroom. I could not be more proud of your children!
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Here's a Sneak Peak into our Week:
-The kids are immersed in writing their realistic fiction mouse stories just like author, Kevin Henkes. They are working to write stories with real life problems and solutions. Most of their problems happen at school or home similar to Kevin's stories.
(If you travel to Wiggin Memorial Library, your child may like taking out some of Kevin Henkes' stories to share at home!)
-We enjoyed sharing the stories of our names. The kids LOVED hearing about each other's names and what their friend would have been named if they were born the opposite gender! They are now asking me to look up the meaning of their names any chance they get! So cool! This week the kids took the information from their homework sheet and wrote the story of their name! They did a great job with this! They will be hanging up for you all to read at Parent Teacher Conferences!
-We started our next unit in math: Understanding Place Value to 1,000. The Starfish worked hard this week on their menu focusing on building three and four digit numbers. We also learned the difference between standard form and expanded form of numbers. Having a strong foundation of the place value of number will support their work with adding and subtracting two digit numbers in the coming months!
-We incorporated a word problem of the day to our math menu this week. Each day your child works hard to solve a math word problem with pictures, numbers,and words. This week your child worked on addition word problems. I can't wait to share their work with you at your child's fall conference.
- We started literacy centers this week. Each day from (11:05-11:35) your child rotates between two rotations where they will practice their word sort spelling patterns, practice sight word spelling, handwriting, and receive small group reading instruction.
-The kids received their first just right spelling sort this week. Your child will have the same sort across two weeks. The first week, your child will begin working on their sort in the classroom and the second week your child will bring a copy of the sort home to practice as well. I am also going to add 5 sight word spelling words to add to your child's words to practice. The Words Their Way spelling program is wonderful but it does not do a great job focusing on sight word spelling such as want, this, their, said, etc. We want to make sure we work on commonly used words in our spelling practice as well.
How can you support your child with their word sort?
-You can sit with your child and listen to them sort their words out loud. They are trained that it is important to read the words out loud as they are sorting.
-Continue to ask your child. "Why does that word belong with this rule?" We want the child to have a strong understanding of why they are placing the words under each category.
-You can have your child write the rules on the top of a piece of paper and practice writing the words under each rule.
- You can practice writing sentences using words from the word sort or other words that follow the spelling pattern.
-As you are reading at home or when you naturally come across words in your everyday life, try to incorporate the spelling patterns your child is practicing and point out the spelling patterns your child is learning. More connections to these words, the more likely the spelling patterns are going to stick and carry over to their everyday writing.
Look out for your child's first word sort on Monday in their folder!
I hope you have a fantastic weekend!
Megan Murphy
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