HOW 10-22-15

Hello families,

This week we discovered how shape has a lot to do with the properties of the three states of matter. Students remembered that solids keep their shape, liquids move and change shape, and gases flow and have no shape. I'm hoping to do some experiments about how matter interacts and changes in the next 3 weeks. Can anyone send in: 1 box of stove-top jello, or 5 antacid tablets?  We also began reading books about matter and examples of solids, liquids, and gases. This week we read: Matter is Everything by Becky Gold, Wind by Honor Head, and A Drop of Water: A Book of Science and Wonder by Walter Wick.

During literacy block many students are finding the joy of partner writing. They are planning stories together, writing, and monitoring each other to make sure what they wrote makes sense. Another favorite literacy time activity is playing Oh no! or Yikes! -- these are games that practice sight word reading and spelling. Our literacy block groups are running smoothly too. Everyone in the class reads in a group with me. Some groups meet more frequently than others depending on the skills each child is developing. Some groups also began meeting with Sarah (our student teacher).

In writing students assessed their own writing using the Calkins guidelines for narrative writing. Then they took their typed stories and began to put them into their published books. Children were responsible for cutting and gluing their page chunks in the correct order to build their book. Then the job of illustrating began! Many careful illustrations were made this week to match the words they had already written.

Second grade mathematicians worked more with fractions this week as well as with fact families. We are still looking at the connection of fact families in addition and subtraction. First grade mathematicians are making 5 and making 10 as well as looking at how numbers are put composed (tens and ones).

We had 2 birthdays, our first popcorn day, and an All School Meeting this week--it was quite exciting! Next week I'm sure we'll have lots of excitement about Halloween which is rapidly approaching. We will not be having a Halloween activity at school though, so please have your children save their costumes for home and trick or treating next weekend.

Don't forget to sign up for a parent/teacher conference at this link if you haven't done so yet. Or, if you don't have internet at home send me a note giving a time range when you'd like to come in Friday November 6th. As of this morning there are conferences still available between 9:20 and 2:40.

Have a wonderful weekend!