Announcements
Holiday Community Reading: If you are planning on coming to Community Reading on Thursday, December 22nd, please RSVP here. This will help the front office ladies on this busy morning! Also, please bring in a favorite winter or holiday book to share!
Help for Next Week: On Monday & Tuesday, I need some parent helpers with making ornaments for our 4th grade buddies. Can you email me if you would like to come on either day between 8:40-10 or 10:20-11:00am? (Any amount of time during these windows would be appreciated).
*Please NO additional gifts for 4th grade buddies. We will create buddy gifts together during classtime and exchange them on Tuesday afternoon. This reduces the chances of hurt feelings or being left out when others are receiving additional (or expensive) gifts. We have grown these precious relationships and they are not tied to “stuff.” Thank you for honoring this request!
School Newsletter: Check out all the updates and announcements in this week's school newsletter. A picture from our crew leading The Beat is featured! :) School Newsletter Link.Thanks for staying updated!
Ongoing Volunteer Opportunities:
-If you are interested in being a lunchroom volunteer please sign up for our time 11:10-11:30 on this lunchroom sign up.
-Here is a classroom volunteer sign-up for days and times to come in.
Calendar
Crew Highlights
HOORAY! I got to meet with families to celebrate your child's progress and growth for the first half of the year. How exciting to see their journey in writing and share specific notes of your child's learning. It was a joy to connect with each of you to share these updates. As a reminder, if you ever have any concerns or would like to request a meeting, please email me, and we can find a time to meet.
*What do you feel proud of about your conference?
Learning Update:
-In writing, our crew has been working on writing pattern books. We used the mentor text "I Can," in which a parrot and frog are comparing things they can do. The words follow a pattern, in which our writers used as inspiration to create their own patten books. Our writers experimented with using sentence starters such as "I can, We can, We have, This is," and so on. Then writers experimented with changing the pattern. Some liked the variety of different sentences and some liked the repetition of similar sentences. Each day, we end writing with a reflection circle, and I love their pride and joy in sharing their hard work in writing.
*Ask your child to tell you about a story that they were working on in writing this week. What words were repeated for your pattern?
-In reading, our unit is called Writers Write Many Stories. Our mini lessons have been focused on what is realistic fiction, drawing inferences, and comparing/contrasting characters in two stories. We read two different mentor texts (My Big Family and Knuffle Bunny) to find examples of these and to think more deeply about the text.
*Ask your child to tell you about drawing an inference. See if you can draw an inference together in your nightly reading. Helpful hints: We use the pictures & words in the story PLUS our background knowledge of what we already know to draw an inference (like a lightbulb that helps us know something new and understand the story better).
-In phonics, our letter of the week was Cc and the high frequency word play and little. We have been practicing sounding out words that are three letter, such as cap, cot, and can. At this time, your child should show mastery of the letters/sounds of m,a,s,t,n,i, f, p,o,&c and the sight words am, I, can, see, like, we, the, go, she, is, he, has, play, & little.
*Be word detectives for play and little. These are a bit tricky! Practice writing them in sand, flour, shaving foam, or play doh.
*Most are familiar with square, triangle, rectangle, and circle. Draw connections and practice identifying a hexagon, sphere, cube, cone, & cylinder.
-In expedition, we have been learning about how people in our community work as crew, such as doctors and firefighters. We wrote in our Scientist Notebooks about how firefighters work as crew. With our 4th grade buddies, each partnership read a book to become an expert about how a different group works as crew (police, librarians, pilots, chefs, welders, ambulance drivers, vets, & etc.). At the end of our time, buddies shared out new learning of how groups work as crew. It was a lot of fun and very informative!
*Tell me about your new learning of how people in our community work as crew.
Friday: Green dots
Celebrating our courageous climbers!
-In PE, students climbed this week. We spent some time talking about what it means to be in your comfort zone, growth zone, and panic zone. Then we brainstormed what you can say to yourself or to others when you (or they) start to go in the panic zone. Climbing is a great time to talk about having a growth mindset, that you might have to persevere through some challenging moments and keep trying before you reach your goal. I like to talk through this so that we can make connections to the classroom and to other parts of our life. I also like to capture the confidence and pride that comes with climbing; for example "If I can climb halfway up this wall, then I can..."
*How did climbing go? What are you proud of? When was a time that you needed to persevere? What words did you tell yourself to stay in your growth zone? What is a goal for next time? What parts of the climbing wall are in your comfort zone, growth zone, or panic zone?
-Holiday Fun: Students loved watching an animated and musical story of The Nutcracker. Another fun read-aloud was The Mitten. We did a fun writing project about "If I Were An Elf." In math, students used pattern blocks to make winter-themed pictures, such as a wreath, pine tree, and mitten. And today, students did a beautiful job of using watercolors to paint a snowflake.
*What has been your favorite holiday activity so far?
Wow! I could not be more proud of how our crew did at The Beat. They spoke with loud clear voices to present their ABC Book of Crew. They were calm and still on the stage while waiting for their turn. And they did a great job singing "You've Got a Friend in Me." Other crews and staff members congratulated our crew all day long about their fantastic performance. What a beautiful example of our class coming together as CREW to share their learning of what it means to be CREW. It was uplifting and inspirational!
I always love to model being brave and taking risks in front of my students.
