Monday Mailer : )

Happy Labor Day!

Instead of my Sunday post, I am giving you a Monday update.  Please disregard the pages on the side of my blog.  I am in the process of updating the schedule and my personal information.  I forgot to mention last week that every morning the "Letter Fairy" is hiding a bedazzled letter somewhere in our classroom.  The students have to find the letter.  We practice writing the letter (uppercase and lowercase), making the letter sound, and generating a list of words that begin with that letter.  After this, we find a home for our sparkly letter on the word wall.  The students are having a lot of fun with this.  

Monday will be our library day.  Please send students to school with their library book every Monday morning.  Although we will have a book exchange every Monday, only every other Monday the students will have a library lesson.  This lesson will be with our librarian, Ms. Datolli.  The students already LOVE her!

If we miss school on Monday, Ms. Datolli will sometimes reschedule our library exchange.  I will notify you when this happens.  

Well, this week will be short yet exciting!

In math, we are focusing on writing and representing numbers 1-5.  Students will match numerals to quantities.  We will continue to explore the math tools with have in our classroom (how to gather materials, clean up, work in cooperative groups, etc.)

-Ask your student to sing you the numeral song (hint...they make the numeral in the air)

In writing, we are brainstorming how we figure out what to write. We will discuss picturing the story in our head before we begin to write.  Students will have the opportunity to share their writing sample with the class.  We will also discuss why writers make pictures and words. I will ask students…how do we know that what we wrote matches our illustration?  We will generate a list of ideas to solve this problem.

-Ask your student what they wrote about this week?  
-Ask your students if they enjoyed sharing their work?

In social studies, we will explore and identify U.S. state symbols.  We are making a whole class American flag using construction paper.  

-Ask your student what are the symbols of our country?

-Ask your student what the flag means?

In reading, we will set a purpose for reading and identify the type of text.  

-Ask your student why we read certain books?
-Ask your student what a fiction book is?

During skills block (phonics/fluency) students will learn to recognize rhyming words in spoken language.  We will learn the poem Did You Ever See?, Teddy Bears, and create a rhyming game to take home.  

-Ask your student to play the matching game over the weekend.

During literacy centers, students will practice independent reading.  We will also introduce the poetry center.

I hope everyone had a fantastic long weekend.

Thanks!
Ms. Grimes