Pronouns

To finish up our journal writing unit, we have been varying our sentences by trying to use pronouns in our writing. We discussed what a pronoun was and looked at various mentor writing pieces to see how authors use pronouns in their writing. 

 

Then, in our journals we have been trying to use pronouns and circling places where we tried it out!

This one made me smile. :)

We will be starting our new unit on personal narratives after the Thanksgiving break. 

Our Week in a Nutshell..

It was so wonderful to meet and chat with all of you this week at parent conferences. It is awesome to have such a supportive group of parents! I told the kids they are VERY lucky to have you. :)

Here's an update about what we've been working on...

In writer's workshop, we are finishing up our unit on Journaling. We are working on revising some of our entries by adding describing words. We made this chart together when we learned about adjectives.

Coming up this week, we will be using pronouns to vary the way we start our sentences. We are also continuing to check our sentences to make sure we use a period and a capital letter.

In reader's workshop, we learned that good readers think about their reading by interacting with the text. 

I modeled these skills in my mini lessons each day using a book called Ginger, which we loved! Then, we went off to practice using our own book bags. 

In word study, we are working on sorting words that start with s, h, and sh. 

We will continue working on other diagraphs (two letters that make one sound, like ch, wh, and th) in the coming weeks.

In math, we are continuing to work with doubles and how we can use doubles as a strategy to add (for example, using 4+4 to help solve 4+5). We are using counters and cubes for much of this unit to help us visualize this tricky concept! 

Finally, in science we recently finished up our bat unit and did some learning about veterans this past week. Here are a few pictures that I will leave you with. Enjoy your night!!

Conferences

Conference slips went home on Monday. If your child was absent, it will be coming home to you tomorrow. I tried to meet everyone's request for a conference the best I could. I know that ten minutes is a short amount of time, but we can always meet at a later date if, after our conference, we feel we need more time. Please try to be right on time so that we can take advantage of the full amount of time. Thanks and I'm looking forward to seeing everyone! :)

Math Workbook Pages

Today your child came home with their workbook pages for chapter 2. Please do not be alarmed if you notice pages that are not completed! In many of the lessons, we use the interactive white board or manipulatives to practice the skills rather than doing the pencil and paper task. In addition, please keep in mind the idea of your child's workbook is for practice, not perfection! Some tasks we do together, some they do with partners, and other pages are done individually. I constantly collect information from these pages to drive my small group instruction. If I notice your child had a hard time with a particular task, I will use information from the workbook to put your child in a group that will work more on that.

I did tell the students that the unfinished workbook pages can be used at home for extra practice! :)

Halloween Pictures!

I just wanted to share a few pictures from Halloween. Thank you to the parents that sent in snacks for our Halloween party! We had a great day! :)

Enjoy your day off tomorrow!