Hello families! We have had such a busy week before our winter break next week! As a reminder, there will be NO SCHOOL Thursday, December 20-Tuesday, January 1. We will be back at school on January 2nd!
Our class had so much fun with all of our winter themed activities! We made penguins to hang above our desks, wrote gingerbread stories, and traveled around the world to see Antarctica! Next week will be even busier! Please join us on Tuesday at 2:30 to create and decorate our own gingerbread houses and on Wednesday at 10:55 to make pizza with our third grade buddies! Our class has been working so hard that they deserve some fun! Wednesday will also be our grade level reward Pajama Day! Writing: This week students continued writing their gingerbread stories! Many students started their second draft after getting help revising their works! Each student is working hard to add details to make their gingerbread story unique; we have some gingerbread girls, chickens, and dragons in our class! Once students have finished their second draft, they are publishing their gingerbread stories in their own book! It is so fun to watch the class carefully write their stories in their green books! Reading: During reading, we focused on adding feeling while reading nonfiction books. We used the pictures and text as clues to change our voices to match. Some students noticed words like quiet and enormous in their books so they changed their voices to match the words! After reading their nonfiction books and adding feelings to the story, each student found their reading partner and read their book with feeling! Some students emphasized key words and phrases to add more drama to their stories! Math: Many students have started to really enjoy math with some students saying, “I’m starting to understand the math!” and “I like doing math now!” I love hearing students become more confident solving math problems and enjoying their work! This week students have been subtracting 9 from teen numbers. After students became comfortable taking away 9 they started to take away 8 from teen numbers. Each student drew pictures, number sentences, and number bonds to show their thinking. Social Studies: We traveled to Antarctica and other parts of the world this week by using Google Earth! The class was amazed to see that Antarctica is not flat like the maps have been showing but it is actually round! We took closer looks into the cities we live in, where our school is, and even the house where Mrs. Crawford grew up on Google Earth! The class is excited to travel to different countries using Google Earth next week! Thank you for your continued support! Thank you so much for coming into school on Wednesday and Thursday to meet with me! I appreciate you taking the time to talk about all the progress that has been shown, the next steps in our learning, and all the ways we can support your child!
As we continue through the year, your child continues growing, the expectations for each subject will also grow. At home, continue to read for 20 minutes each day, practice some sight words and writing, and look over the math homework to know what we are learning about in school! As always, please email me if you have any questions or concerns! Writing: This week in writing we began to create our own gingerbread man stories! To start off our writing, we first brainstormed our setting. Together we learned that the setting of a story is where the story takes place. As we looked at different gingerbread man stories, the class noticed that the settings were similar but also different. We wanted to make our settings similar so readers would know that we are writing about gingerbread men but also different so they would be unique. It was so fun to see some settings in the mountains, at the north pole, and some in a tree farm! Reading: We are now reading like Experts in non-fiction books! Each student is using strategies such as identifying key words, finding interesting parts to share, identifying the feeling in each book, and figuring out how the book is organized and why that is important. Some students noticed that the books are organized with a beginning, middle, and end just like the stories they are writing! Others noticed that the books are organized with really exciting details in the beginning to draw the read in! Our class has loved reading non-fiction books the past couple of weeks! Math: During math we have been applying the skill of making 10 to new subtraction problems! Students are now able to solve multi-step story problems by taking from the 10 to create easier numbers to help solve! For example, in the problem: Sarah has 10 cookies on a plate and 3 in the oven. She eats 9 cookies from the plate. How many cookies does Sarah have left? students know that they can take away 9 from the 10 so 1 cookie is left over and add that 1 to the 3 to find 4 cookies are left. Many students are excited for more challenging problems next week! Social Studies: Our unit of Families has ended and we are now learning about Our World. This week we looked at a map of the world and a globe. We compared the map and globe to learn what they told us and how they were similar and different. Next week we will be going on Google earth to visit different parts of the world and see what they look like! We are excited to look at different countries and cities! We finished our week with a school wide reward dance party! It was so much fun seeing all their hard work pay off and enjoy their prize! We also reached our class reward by filling our marble jar! Our class has decided next Friday will be: Popsicle and Movie afternoon! We will get to watch a movie and eat Popsicle for all of our hard work. Please let me know if there are any diet restrictions for the Popsicle. I will be purchasing them this weekend! |