Feb. 1st

Snow Angles

Last week was full all new things and adventures!  

Literacy: 

• We learned how to write uppercase E and F.  
• In writer's workshop students worked to publish their narratives, with several children finishing the process, having created a cover for their books.  Those who finished had time to share their books with the rest of the class.  Students exhibited a lot of pride in their accomplishments!
• We launched our next unit in reader's workshop.  This unit focuses on reading more challenging books.  In this unit we will really dive into strategies to read books independently.

Math:

• This week our focus was on comparing weight.  We used balance scales to compare weight of objects, and weight objects with non standard units (pennies, bears, cubes, glass globs, etc).  
• Our 100th day of school will be Monday, Feb. 10th.  Student created plans for their 100th day projects.  We will begin constructing our projects next week.  The goal of this project is for students  to count 100 items (using a strategy to count accurately such as counting 10 groups of 10).  Many students have a hard time conceptualizing what 100 things looks like.  This work will help solidify their understanding of the number 100.  
• Students competed the PNOA (Primary Numbers and Operations Assessment) this week.  This is a lengthy assessment tool used to measure students growth and helps to informs my instruction.  I was very happy with the way students persisted with the tasks on this assessment.

Science:

• Students are learning about scientists use their detective skills to look for evidence.  One of the clues nature detectives use are animal tracks and traces (scat, beds, fur, rubbings, food, etc) to determine who was there and what they were doing (what is the "story").   
• During ECO students used their detective skills to discover what animals live in our forest, and what the animals are doing this time of year.  Students discovered signs of snowshoe hare, foxes, squirrels, and some other small rodent (possibly a mole or shrew).  Students discovered, tracks, animal beds, scat, and signs of food.  We summarized that we know these animals stay active in the winter.

Reminders:

• Beach Day is Wednesday, Feb. 5th.  Students can wear beachy, summer clothes (no swim suites please), flip flops (or sandals), sun hats, and bring a Beach towel!  ALL students will be given sunglasses to wear!  
• There is NO SCHOOL on Friday, Nov. 7th (teacher In-Service).
• Our Next ECO will be Friday,  Feb. 14th.
• The Class would like to exchange Valentines on Friday, Feb. 14th.  Please see the letter regarding this in your child's Friday Folder.
• If you are able to bring either Pretzels or Goldfish Crackers for our 100th day snack, please let me know.