Week of 11/17/14-11/26/14

Hi Everyone!  Happy Monday!!!  Let me recap what we learned last week and what we will learn during this shortened week.

Last week in Reader's Workshop, we began our unit focused on the importance of getting to know the characters in our books.  We discussed the way good readers become the characters in their books and act out what their characters are doing by thinking about the details in the book describing what characters are doing, thinking, and saying.  This week we will talk about the importance of noticing when our characters' feelings change so that we can change the reading voice in our heads as well.  We will also talk about the importance of reading and rereading a book many times until the story can be read smoothly.

Last week in Writing Workshop we brought in and wrote opinion pieces regarding our collections.  We judged the items we brought in and chose a first place or blue ribbon winner and listed reasons to support our choice.  We also enlisted the help of our classmates to help us bolster our position and even include their reasons as quotes in our pieces.  This week in writing we will learn to utilize a checklist to help make our writing the best it can be and become more independent writers.

Last week in math we finished up our subtraction unit and moved on to our unit on addition and subtraction facts to 12.  We learned about adding doubles, near doubles, and facts with 5 and 10 on a ten-frame.  This week in the few days that we have, we will learn to use doubles addition facts to master related subtraction facts.

Have a fantastic Thanksgiving and long weekend!!!!!!

A Few Reminders:

-early dismissal Wednesday, 11/26, no school Thursday, 11/27 and Friday, 11/28.
-please send book baggies in DAILY so that students can swap out the books they are reading at home daily.
-have your child read every night-whether it be the book bag books or Raz-Kids, or a combination of both.
-send in an old sock to be used as a white board eraser.
-practice addition and subtraction facts to 20.

Have a great week!!!
Sincerely,
Mrs. Mocarsky

Week of 11/3/14

Hi Everyone!  I apologize for the late post this week.  Its been a crazy week for sure!  Here is what we have been learning this week:

In Reading Workshop, we have been working on retelling a book to make sure we understand what happened.  We practice retelling in order saying what happened first, next, then, and finally.  Readers can open the book and touch the parts of it as they retell.  Please encourage them to do this with you at home as well.  We learned to use what we know about other words to figure out new words, figure out tricky words by saying the sounds of the beginning letters, and also looking at the end of a word to help figure it out.

In Writing Workshop, we are working on finishing up our unit on writing small moments.  We will spend some time focusing on stretching out our most important part in our piece, trying our hand at using craft moves we've noticed other authors use in our own writing (such as pop out words, ellipses, and exact actions), and editing our work with a writer's checklist.

In math we are still plugging away at our subtraction unit.  This week we are learning to write related addition and subtraction problems, write and identify different subtraction sentences that are true for the same model, and use counters to act out and solve subtraction story problems.

A Few Reminders:
-please send book baggies in daily so that students can swap out the books they are reading at home daily.
-have your child read every night-whether it be the book bag books or Raz-Kids, or a combination of both.
-send in an old sock to be used as a white board eraser.
-practice addition and subtraction facts to 10.

Have a great week!!!
Sincerely,
Mrs. Mocarsky