February 4th - 8th

Dear Families,

We have finished off with another fantastic week! I've enjoyed every moment of helping your children craft their very own Small Moment stories, stretch their reading abilities, practice math strategies, use technology in persuasive writing, and make sense of the 4 main bodies of water on our planet. Your children are such sponges when it comes to learning and caring about the environment around us! On that note, they are also wonderful, little authors with unique stories to share, and I hope you have been enjoying the stories that have already come home. There are more Small Moments in the hall and more still to come home.  Some of you may have noticed that your child's reading level has recently changed. The new levels are at your child's "instructional reading level", which means that they are being challenged! Please encourage your child to reread the homework book each night of the week, as this is an important key to success with fluency and comprehension on these levels. Now, for the joke of the week...

A Cub Scout found a frog that said, “Kiss me and I will become a beautiful princess.” The boy studied the frog, then put it in his pocket. “Hey,” the frog croaked, “how come you didn’t kiss me?” “I’d rather have a talking frog than a princess any day!”  (Chuckle)

Reading Workshop:

In Reading Workshop we will begin our unit on Fairy Tales!  This a such a fun unit where we explore the genre and discuss the element of a Fairy Tale.  After our whole unit we will have a Fairy Tale Parade!

Writer’s Workshop:

In Writer’s Workshop we continue our learning about Small Moments.  We will discuss how to work with a partner, how to add detail to our story and how to shape our stories.  We will encourage our students to write about an experience and twist it to make their own Fairy Tales.

Math:

In math we will our unit on Subtraction.  We are learning strategies on how to solve subtraction problems and how to think about grouping problems.  We will learn about related facts such as 6-4=2 and 4+2=6.  We will discuss fact families and how the problems are related.  These skills will help your child build their math fact fluency.

Social Studies:

In Science we will continue learning about Natural Resources.  This week our focus will be on soil and landforms. We will observe, describe and experience topsoil, sandy soil and clay.  We will record our observations in our Science Notebook.  We will hypothesize how water flows through each of these types of soils and how that can affect our environment.  We will also begin learning about different major landforms.

THANK YOU!!!Computer Lab - Mr. Alagar
Tuesday Folders - Mrs. Tappe
Classroom Helpers - Mrs. Wright and Mrs. Rodsari Sayyar                       Parent Readers - Mrs. Loschke and Mrs. Rodsari Sayyar
Homework Helpers - Mrs. VanMetre and Mrs. Bhatia                        Classroom Donations - Mr. Postelnicu

Reminders:

Tuesday, February 5^th- 7pm 1^st grade P.E. program

Wednesday, February 6^th – Early Release

Thursday, February 14^th – Valentine Party  1:30pm-2:30pm

Monday, February 18^th- Student Holiday