November 12th - 16th

Dear families,

Have you noticed that some of our classroom doors have transformed into scarecrows? Fall has arrived, clocks have been set back, Autumn air is blowing our way, and we are well on our way to Thanksgiving.  With the change in season always comes the change in allergens in the air, and we have had a lot of them flying around these days!  In fact, I was hit so hard this week that the children were my voice yesterday and today. Not only did several students think it was a great opportunity to be able to tell their peers what the directions were, but they were also such impressive leaders while walking to and from other areas in the school that they earned 12 cotton balls in two days! Yay!!! Yay!!! Yay!!! Way to go, Mrs. Leyva's Ladybugs!!! 

Now, for the joke of the week .... drum rolls please ... Why do turkeys always gobble gobble? They never learned good table manners! Hah!

Reading Workshop:

With Thanksgiving right around the corner, we will be using our research skills to study topics that are related to Thanksgiving, such as Native Americans, Pilgrims, Mayflower, and The First Thanksgiving Feast. We will be using several resources along the way.

Writing Workshop:

This week in writing, we will be writing a nonfiction book entitled All About Thanksgiving, which will be based upon our research information that we have gathered during our reading lessons throughout the week. Each mini book will include the elements of nonfiction that we have previously studied.

Math:

This is our second week of the unit: Developing Count On Addition Strategies for Basic Facts.  

It is essential that all students are able to successfully calculate both mentally and with paper and pencil their basic facts.  Research shows that the most effective way for students to learn the basic facts is to arrange the facts into clusters.  Each cluster is based on a thinking strategy that students can use to help them learn all of facts in that cluster.  We will be doing the "Count On" cluster for the next two weeks.  Counting is a vital life skill and forms the basis of the Count On strategy, a strategy that is useful for more than half the number of basic facts that need to be mastered.  This unit includes Count On 1 (+1 facts), Count on 2 (+2 facts) and Count on 0 (+0 facts).  This unit also develops the concept of "turnarounds," the application of the commutative property of addition.  This property allows any number of addends to be combined in any order and the sum will always be the same.  The vocabulary your child will be introduced to in this unit include: Count on, one more, add one, addition, number sentence, turnaround fact, equation, Count on 2, two more, add two, equals, equal sign means "the same as" (NOT "the answer is"), zero. 

Social Studies:

Maps and globes are the focus this week in Social Studies. As a class we will compare the two and learn how each is important. We will also be learning about where we are located in the big scheme of the world, starting with our street address and moving outwardly to the entire world.This is always a fun week for the students!

Thanks to you…

Tuesday Folders: Keri Loschke

Copies and cutting: Alina Postelnicu

Computer Lab: Carl Alagar

Homework Helpers: Jen VanMetre and Santrupta Bhatia

Wednesday Reader: Jen VanMetre

Classroom Helper: Melissa Castellani

Friday Reader: Julie Cooper

And a continued thank you to all of you who are working with your children at home with their homework packets. You make a HUGE difference in their lives and mine! I appreciate you!

Reminders:

Monday, November 12th, Veteran's Day (ovserved). School is in session.

Wednesday, November 14^th Thanksgiving Meal in the cafeteria

Thursday, November 15^th 6:30 Skate Night

Friday, November 16th, Pilgrim Dolls project to be completed and returned

Friday, November 20th, Thanksgiving Food Sampling... details coming soon

Wed-Fri, November 21-23 Holiday