Things coming up....

• The Feb newsletter/spelling was sent home today, please post in a good spot to study!
• Attached to it is the February Book IT log to record your 20 minutes of reading each night:-)  
• Next Wednesday is our 100th day of school!  Students can get cozy in their Pajamas on WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 4th to celebrate and curl up with a good book:-)  We would like to have a small snack/drink to celebrate.  If you would like to provide some juice boxes or a snack, let us know!
• Along with our 100th day celebration we are collecting 100 gently used books to donate to an orphanage. Please see our note for more details.  We will collect books from February 2-February 18th!

Comprehension this week!

This week we spent a few days focusing on characteristics of poetry.  We looked at different forms of poetry, rhyme, and rhythm!  We read a poem titled "The Inchworm"  which was written to look like an inchworm. We read the book IN THE SWIM and looked at poems written about different fish.  Then we chose one of those poems to identify the rhyming words.  We discussed "visualizing" as we read the poems and drew a picture of what we "saw in our minds" when we read the poems.  Here is an example:

Treasure Boxes

Starting today we will be making a treasure box every week to go with the story we read on Monday mornings.  Our goal is to increase our vocabulary.  Today I read the book The Emperor's Egg by Martin Jenkins.  We read for comprehension and discussed the story as we went. Tomorrow morning I will read it a second time and we will stop to write down vocabulary words or phrases on note cards.  We will use these note cards to practice our new vocabulary.  Students may bring in an item or draw something that goes with our story and we will put it in our treasure box.  We can also use these items to practice retelling the story.  The items students bring in could be here for a few months as we grow our collection of treasure boxes and vocabulary each week.  Please be sure they are items that are not valuable.

Let's add bigger numbers!

Today we worked with two-digit numbers and students learned to represent them on their math boards with ten sticks and ones, and written as addition equations.  Next students learned how to add two-digit and one-digit numbers using their math boards. Here are a few pictures of our proud little Einsteins at work.

No school Friday, January 23rd! Teacher Inservice

Students, enjoy the day off and hopefully a good book!

NOUN SONG and VERB RAP

This week we were reviewing nouns and verbs!  These are two fun songs that we use with the kids that they LOVE:-)  

Personal Elcetronic Devices at School

Just a quick note: Mr. Ramminger has currently given permission for students to bring their devices to school when we know we will have INDOOR recess due to extremely low temperatures. BUT, you must understand the school cannot be responsible for any lost, stolen, damage, etc.  Mrs. Hoban and I are good with this and can store the device back by our desk, but we are asking that you send an accompanying note stating you understand that the school is not responsible for lost, stolen, damage, etc. to the device.

If you are not quite sure or hesitant to send....keep it home. :-)

Testing

Today (Friday) I individually assessed the students using the PALS screening tool.  PALS stands for Phonological Awareness Literacy Screening.  This is done in grades 4K-2nd.  Wisconsin teachers use PALS to identify students at risk of developing reading difficulties. diagnose students knowledge of literacy fundamentals, monitor literacy growth in the classroom, and plan instruction based on what individual students already know. This is done in the Fall, Winter, and Spring.

Star Testing in Reading/Math, Guided Reading assessments, & Aimsweb Testing were also completed over the past week.  We use these assessments, again, to monitor student growth over the year and plan instruction based on what students already know/need to know.

All of these assessment TOGETHER give us a good snapshot of your child's academic progress.  We will share this with you in the upcoming days!

Math Class

In math class students are learning teen addition strategies.  One of the strategies involves making a ten.  In class today students cut apart green Make-a-Ten Cards to practice finding teen totals.  For example if they are adding 6+8, they start with the 8 because it's the bigger number, then take 2 from the 6 and add it to the 8 to make 10.  They'll have 4 left over so the answer is 10+4 or 14.

Let's run!

With all this cold weather and indoor recess this week, we were excited to get running for our extra gym time this week!  The students started by run/walking 5 laps around the gym and then we had a snowball fight!  They each got a piece of white paper to crumple up into a pretend snowball.  The class was divided in half and if they got hit with a snowball from the opposing team they were out. Our final two students standing at the end were Teagen and Zander.  They put up a great fight with their classmates cheering them on.  In the end, Zander pulled out the win to be our snowball fight champion.

Drawing Conclusions

This week we have been discussing Drawing Conclusions as part of our reading comprehension time.   Helping your child understand when information is implied, or not directly stated, will improve her skill in drawing conclusions and making inferences. These skills will be needed for all sorts of school assignments, including reading, science and social studies. Inferential thinking is a complex skill that will develop over time and with experience!

Here is another example of what we discussed....using clues!  Explain to your child that we make conclusions about things and draw inferences all the time. Draw a conclusion together and then talk about what clues were used to come to that conclusion. For example, Mady played outside today. How can we tell? She has muddy shoes, jump rope on front porch, water bottle out. Dad seems tired tonight. How can we tell? he's rubbing his eyes, he's on the couch, he was yawning at the dinner table.

Play twenty questions! This familiar word game helps build inference skills. As your child develops skill with the game, encourage him to avoid asking direct questions like, "Is it a dog?" Rather, encourage him to ask broader questions, "Does it walk on four feet?" Then, when your child figures it out, ask him to tell you the clues that lead to the right answer

Merry Christmas!

Thank you again for a wonderful first half of the school year!  We have a delightful & kind class and are thankful for all your generous gifts:-)  I hope you enjoyed your time off with your children and are ready to get back to work:-)  Here is a short clip the kids made before break!