February 23, 2012

We have almost finished our unit on dinosaurs and it has been a blast!  We wrote a nonfiction book about five types of dinosaurs, measured dinosaur tails, made dinosaur fossils, measured with a t-rex tooth, excavated chocolate chips from a cookie, and did many other fun activities!  I think our whole class enjoyed learning about these reptiles.

In literacy, we continue to meet several times each week for reading groups.  I am very impressed with the way our class points to words as they read, reads sight words, and uses reading clues (like looking at the picture, trying to sound out a word, or asking for help) to figure out the words they don't know.  Many reading groups are starting to read more difficult books with lots of dialog.  We have been discussing quotation or "talking" marks and have been practicing the word SAID, even though it is not on our sight word list.  Thanks you for continuing to practice reading and sight words at home with your child each night!

We started writer's workshop this week.  I showed the class how to draw a story map as a plan for writing a story.  Everyone chose a topic for their first story and drew a few details onto their maps.  Now, we have started writing one page of the book each day.  When they are finished, we will make covers for the books and publish them in our classroom library.  I am so excited to see the great ideas coming from our students!  Story writing is a fun activity to do at home as well!

In math, we have finished chapter 8 on time and money.  We will continue to review coins and telling time to the hour and half hour.  These are tricky concepts and we need to keep practicing!  Our next chapter is on measurement.  We have done lots of measuring this year already, so this will be a great review.

Next week, we will begin a month-long author study on Dr. Seuss.  I am excited to read many of his books with the class and discuss the similarities and differences between his books.  Feel free to check out some of his books from the Edgerton library and read some at home!  You will probably notice that many of his books have tons of our sight words in them, many have rhyming words, and there are lots of silly characters in his books.  We have many fun activities planned to go along with Dr. Seuss books this month.

Reminders:
*Library is every Tuesday.  Be sure your child returns his/her books on library day!
*Conferences are next Thursday.  Thursday is also an early release day for students.
*Check out the new snack calendar to see when your child should bring snack for the class!

Pictures of February projects:

T-rex noodle skeleton

Stegosaurus noodle skeleton

A bag of candy hearts written by our class!