Week of 9/28/2015

Ahoy All!

Hope you are enjoying this wonderful sunshine! We are off to a great start here in 204-205! Here is what we are doing....

Reading: This week we are beginning the second source in our unit on Literacy Around the World. Students are working on finding the main message of fictional stories. They have learned that the main message is what the author is teaching us through the story.

Writing: This week we are learning how to edit our writing. Today Mrs. Blair introduced the students to rainbow editing and using our editing marks. We will continue to work on our personal narratives.

Math: This week is all about vocabulary review, and review of our addition facts. Today we started to work on double digit addition.

Social Studies: Our learning of maps is continuing with learning were the 7 continents and 4 oceans are. They learned a song today that will be worth 50 Blair-win bucks if they have it memorized by Friday. The link is below.

Spelling Words:
always
know
large
few
show
very
because
too
there
those
their
read
out
about
might
found

Challenge Words:
thirty
twenty
process
eighty
present

Important Events:

10/1- Fall Family Night @5:30
10/2- Book Fair Ends

Thanks for all you do to support your kiddos!
Miss Irwin

Week of 9/21/2015

Class Business:

-Your children brought home math on Monday (it's due Friday). Please make sure this assignment "lives" in the purple folder as it goes back and forth to school.

-We go up to the high school on Thursday and are very excited to participate with the students in Mrs. Dean's science class.

-We appreciate any donations you'd like to give to our class auction. These items can be from your home (maybe Goodwill-bound  ). Books, games, stuffed animals, etc. are great auction items.

Reading:  We took a look at "real reading" today. They totally understood the difference between reading the words and thinking while reading the words. Your child should be reading for 20 minutes every evening at home. We preach that "readers are leaders" in here daily!

Math: Homework will be coming home weekly now. Please email if any of the Bridges curriculum needs clarification.

Writing: Our personal narratives are going great! It was so exciting to finally start our "rough, rough, rough" drafts. The students have great ideas and are on their way. It made me proud to see them get in the writing zone today.

Spelling: We have a spelling test every Friday. These are our words for this week: 

from, there, their, said, could, first, back, right, help, between, never, below, saw, something, thought, both

Challenge words: choose, choices, shelter, quickly, quietly

Social Studies: The 7 continent song is coming at ya! It's a fun one. We will be covering the cardinal directions and how to read a grid on a map.

Mystery questions.

1) What is the name of the imaginary line that runs north and south through the earth?

2) Name five countries in Africa.

3) Name five countries in Europe.

4) Name our city, county and state (you must spell them correctly) 

Thanks, 

Miss Irwin 

A.C.T.I.V.E Chant

The A.C.T.I.V.E. reading chant:

Asking questions (talking hand)

Making connections (loop index fingers together)

Telling the story over again (talking hand, go "over the hill" with your hand)

I infer to make a prediction (point to brain)

Visualizing (swirl hands around brain)

Evaluating (hands out and "do I like this?" expression on face)

Summarizing (go out big with hands to "wrap it up")

Yeah! (jazz hands )

Learn this chant by Friday and receive 25 Bla-irwin bucks.

Extra reminders:

Please sign your child's planner each evening. This is a great place for me to communicate with you about goings-on at school. This is also the spot where we write down what we do each day. If you get a "fine" response to the question "How was school today?" items written on the planner can help to get the conversation rolling! Also please remind them to bring purple folders to and from school every day.

Auction: Mrs. Blair and I will be hosting an auction for your kids right before winter break. We are so grateful when parents donate to this event. We love having bid-worthy items that our classes can go for with their Bla-irwin bucks. Our currency system works so well and the auction is a great reward for their hard work!

 

First Post for this year! 9/14-9/18

Ahoy!

Welcome to the first blog post of the year. My goal is to update my blog every Tuesday. However, if you ever have any questions about what is happening in our classroom feel free to email me!

Reading: Yesterday we took our unit 1 pre-assessment. This unit is all about literacy around the world. Students will be reading and researching how children in other countries get books delivered to them.

Writing: We are in the prewriting phase of our personal narrative. Students are learning to "show not tell" when they are writing.

Math: Our big focus in math this month is making sure that we have our addition and subtraction facts down pat!

Social Studies: Tomorrow we will begin our unit on mapping and geography. This unit is a lot of fun! We start with an activity called "Me on the Map".

Spelling Words:
there
while
small
along
with
because
would
never
been
next
sound
great
one
think
little
might

Dates to Remember:
Book orders are due on the 22nd.
Picture day is the 22nd.

Thanks for all you do to support your kiddos!
Cassie Irwin