Weekly News December 14th-18th

It is our last full week of school in 2015!  Unbelievable!  Although this is such an exciting time of year of our young learners, they have been working hard in the classroom.  The next week and a half will bring lots of wrapping up of units before the winter break.  We will have a guest teacher for the 1/2 day on Tuesday, so if you have changes in transportation plans due to the half day, please let us know as soon as possible.

Upcoming Dates:
December 15: 1/2 day 11:30 dismissal
December 23: Super Hero Day!  
December 24-January 3: Winter Break 

Reading:  We hope you enjoyed the "Gift of Reading" your child shared with you on this weekend.  The students were so purposeful in thinking about the special people that have influenced their "reading lives" and choosing a book they thought that person would love!  We will dig a little deeper into reading for meaning this week, noticing that many of our books at these beginning reading levels carry much more meaning in the pictures than the words.  We will celebrate all of our super powers next week on Dec. 23rd with a Super Hero Day! Here are the details!

Writing: We hope all of you had the chance to take a peek at the writing your child brought home on Friday, they are growing so much each day as writers!  This week we will work hard to add beginnings to our true stories that include place and time (One day on the playground...).  We will also work to write conclusions for our stories that include showing the feelings of the characters in our stories.  We will continue to work with our reading partners to reread our favorites pieces and will work to ask answer questions about our stories that will push us to say/write more!

Math: Those tricky teen numbers will continue to be one thing we focus on this week, as we look for groups of ten ones and then add on any extra ones to determine quantity.  We are learning it is easy to see a group of ten when it is organized in two groups of 5 or a long group of 10, but tricky when we are looking at a random group of objects (see picture below).

 We will also work hard this week to show, recognize, understand and name the partners of numbers 2-6. Please see this note for an explanation of partners and how we use this term in math. 

The centers we will work in this week will be:

• listening to story problems on the iPad and then using pictures and equations to solve them
• creating a book using break apart strips to show partners of numbers 2-6
• using equations and math tools to solve both addition and subtraction problems within 5
• using marbles to show partners and writing equations to match

Science:  We will continue learning about the smooth, moist skin of amphibians this week.  Last week we learned that amphibians absorb water through their skin!  We will also begin to wrap up our Fur, Feathers, Skin, and Scales unit be comparing all of the different body coverings we have studies so far to notice similarities and differences in how they protect and help various creatures.

Word Work:  There are just 3 sight words to focus on until winter break due to the short week next week and the 1/2 day this week.  We will be focusing on the number words: one, two, and three.  We will also look closely at some other number words.  This is sure to bring some exciting discoveries about the words to and two!  Continue to hunt for all of the words as you read nightly.