Our Elf on the Shelf arrived today! Students were so surprised and excited that The Book Fairy and Santa left us this wonderful gift. Of course, we had to give our elf a name. To do so, we voted on a name and created a graph. The five names voted upon were: Smarty, Cookie, Buddy, Fred, and George. As you can see in the graph below, the name Cookie won by a landslide! Cookie will fly to and from the North Pole to report if my students are doing their best work and are respecting one another. It will be fun to see where and what the elf will be doing each morning when we come to school.
With the beginning of the new trimester already a week underway, we are hard at work learning all sorts of new things. Here is what we are learning about in the following subject areas:
Reading
We have been reading and studying various nonfiction books to learn more about the text features that are in nonfiction books. In addition, we have been learning the importance of comprehending a story. We have been practicing retelling fiction stories, focusing on who is in the story (characters), what happened in the story (plot), and where the story took place (setting). We will be learning about problems and solutions in stories.
If you haven't heard yet, we now have I-Pad Minis to use in our classroom. We are currently using them during our reading time. As one of their 5 choices, students are able to "Listen to Reading" for 15-20 minutes of their reading time using the I-Pad Minis. We are using the Raz-Kids App right now, but we will purchase other apps to allow more options for Listen to Reading.
Writing
In conjunction with reading, we have been learning about non-fiction books. Once we have developed a list of text features commonly found in nonfiction books, we will begin to write our own non-fiction books. These books will be about an animal of their choice. In the next week, your child will bring home a research page regarding his/her chosen animal. Please help your child fill out the information and possibly print out some pictures for their books. This work will be really helpful when your child writes his/her book.
To assist with your child's research, you may want to consider using the new accessible site called Pebble Go. Pebble Go provides kid-friendly information on animals, people, and earth/space. This site can be found on the Learning Websites tab on my blog. A sheet came home earlier this week with our school's log-in information. You should definitely check this out with your child!
Math
We have been learning more about teen numbers and how teen numbers are ten and some more. We have done a lot of problem solving using ten-frames, which has really helped us recognize what a group of 10 looks like. Students have learned that when a 10-frame is filled, they don't need to count every single item in the frame. Instead, they can say 10 and count on from that number. Students are learning that this is a much faster and more efficient way to count.
Students are also learning about the concept of one more and one less. We have referred to these numbers as neighboring numbers. Some skills you can work on at home this trimester are:
*counting to 100 by ones
*counting to 100 by tens
*counting to 100 by fives
*writing numbers to 20
Science
We are currently learning about various body parts and their functions. Within this unit, we will learn more about the 5 senses.
Social Studies
In Social Studies, we are continuing to learn more about how we are all alike and different. We will be learning about how we, as humans, are constantly changing. We will learn how we have all changed over time and will focus on the terms past, present, and future. At some point this year, students will create a time line and a book about how they have changed over time.
Reading
We have been reading and studying various nonfiction books to learn more about the text features that are in nonfiction books. In addition, we have been learning the importance of comprehending a story. We have been practicing retelling fiction stories, focusing on who is in the story (characters), what happened in the story (plot), and where the story took place (setting). We will be learning about problems and solutions in stories.
If you haven't heard yet, we now have I-Pad Minis to use in our classroom. We are currently using them during our reading time. As one of their 5 choices, students are able to "Listen to Reading" for 15-20 minutes of their reading time using the I-Pad Minis. We are using the Raz-Kids App right now, but we will purchase other apps to allow more options for Listen to Reading.
Writing
In conjunction with reading, we have been learning about non-fiction books. Once we have developed a list of text features commonly found in nonfiction books, we will begin to write our own non-fiction books. These books will be about an animal of their choice. In the next week, your child will bring home a research page regarding his/her chosen animal. Please help your child fill out the information and possibly print out some pictures for their books. This work will be really helpful when your child writes his/her book.
To assist with your child's research, you may want to consider using the new accessible site called Pebble Go. Pebble Go provides kid-friendly information on animals, people, and earth/space. This site can be found on the Learning Websites tab on my blog. A sheet came home earlier this week with our school's log-in information. You should definitely check this out with your child!
Math
We have been learning more about teen numbers and how teen numbers are ten and some more. We have done a lot of problem solving using ten-frames, which has really helped us recognize what a group of 10 looks like. Students have learned that when a 10-frame is filled, they don't need to count every single item in the frame. Instead, they can say 10 and count on from that number. Students are learning that this is a much faster and more efficient way to count.
Students are also learning about the concept of one more and one less. We have referred to these numbers as neighboring numbers. Some skills you can work on at home this trimester are:
*counting to 100 by ones
*counting to 100 by tens
*counting to 100 by fives
*writing numbers to 20
Science
We are currently learning about various body parts and their functions. Within this unit, we will learn more about the 5 senses.
Social Studies
In Social Studies, we are continuing to learn more about how we are all alike and different. We will be learning about how we, as humans, are constantly changing. We will learn how we have all changed over time and will focus on the terms past, present, and future. At some point this year, students will create a time line and a book about how they have changed over time.