December 7-11

Language Arts/Reading:
Our family heritage research has been made into a slideshow. Those will be coming home next week. They really did a great job on this project. We will work on prepositions and prepositional phrases this week. We are also going to continue using context clues to comprehend passages. We will begin another reader’s theater this week. Performances will be soon!

Writing:
Next week we will start a persuasive letter to parents. We will read I Wanna Iguana and model our stories from the letters in the book.

Spelling:
Our spelling and phonics will focus on “sh” and “ch”. Unit 16 in the spelling book, pages 114 to 118.
Spelling Words: sheep, chest, leash, teach, chain, chase, much, lunch, each, such, catch, chew, shower, shout, sheet, dish, shade, shake, shelf, cheap
Bonus Words: shoulder and challenge

Math:
Our money unit will continue. We will be comparing collections of coins and showing several ways to make the same amount. We will also work on some problem solving with money included. Our assessment will be on Friday and we will review at school on Thursday. Math homework is due on Tuesday.

Science/Social Studies:
Our government unit will begin. Our class will start the process of choosing a class mascot. Each child will prepare a speech at home to convince others to vote for their favorite mascot candidate. The speeches will be presented to our class. A note will be coming home in Monday folders with more information on this. We will also learn about the roles of officials, government services in our community, and the voting process.

Thank you and Reminders:
•Thank you, Alison Roger-Monday folders for November!!!
•December Monday folders-
•Math homework due on Tuesday
•Class holiday party- December 17th at 1:45 more information to come…
•Thank you, parent readers
Thank you to Susan Kung for extra Treasure Chest toys!
Thank you to all the parents who came to plan our holiday party!

November 30-December 4th

Have a great Thanksgiving Break!

READING
We will work on alphabetical order and dictionary skills this week. We will continue to work on synonyms and antonyms in our language practice this week and continue to use our reading strategies of making connections, visualization and inferring. We will also begin reading and discussing fairy tales this week.

WRITING
We completed our persuasive Turkey story based on ‘Twas the Night Before Thanksgiving. Please come read them if you have a chance. They students had to write a persuasive story from the point of view of the turkey, and they are very good! Our family heritage research has gone very well. We are writing short paragraphs about our heritage, and will make short slide shows to send home. We will complete our heritage writing and slide shows during writing time this week.

SPELLING:
Vowel Sound in “ball” ( Complete Unit 15)
smog, claw, jaws, crawl, stall, lawn, cost, tall, hog, yawn, seesaw, strawberry, cloth, waterfall, wallpaper, small, fall, fought, cough, chalk
CHALLENGE WORDS
beanstalk
distraught

MATH
We will review ordering numbers, place value, and changing digits in the tens and hundreds place. We will have an assessment this week and a review will go home in Monday folders. Then we are going to begin discussing money this week! We will discuss different types of money, identify coins and begin counting money. We will work with the penny, nickel, dime, quarter, and half dollar. They will be expected to make amounts with different combinations of coins. This is a fun unit that the kids can really relate to at home. Ask your child to count coin amounts with you and find amounts. There are also some fun games on www.firstinmath.com to play like Equal Money!

SOCIAL STUDIES/SCIENCE
This week we will begin exploring uses of natural resources. We have discussed what they are, and now we will go into detail on how we use them and how important they are to us. Our focus will be on soil, rocks, water, and atmospheric gases this week. We will discuss the uses of each and their importance in our lives. We will revisit this in more detail at a later time in the year.

THANK YOU and Reminders
•Thank you to Alison Rogers for stuffing Monday folders in November!
•Class holiday party meeting- Wednesday, December 2nd at 11:40
•Thank you to Susan Kung for Treasure Chest items and headphones!
•Math homework due on Tuesday
•Spelling Words homework this week is unit 15
•TAG referral due December 4th. It can be found on our Caraway homepage.
•Scholastic orders will be due December 4th in order to get them back in time for the holidays (feel free to order scholastic books as gifts for the Holidays). You can go to www.scholastic.com/bookclubs to order. Our username is: MsGWClass and password is: ClubOrders.
•You can still send in headphones for your child to use during work stations.


CLASS NEEDS
We need more Play Dough for the Making Words portion of our work stations. This is a favorite of the class, and it helps them practice spelling words each week.

November 23-24

CAN FOOD DRIVE
Thank you to everyone who sent in cans and coats! Our class did a wonderful job. We collected a total of 177 cans all by ourselves! Today we will all have lunch in the room with the teacher to celebrate our achievement.

READING
Our family heritage research has been going great. Thank you for helping them to complete the interviews at home. This week we will continue the research and write a short paragraph about our heritage. We will work on synonyms and antonyms in our language practice this week and continue to use our reading strategies of making connections, visualization and Inferring.

WRITING
We will continue our persuasive Turkey story based on ‘Twas the Night Before Thanksgiving. Those should be completed and in the hall by Tuesday.

SPELLING:
There are no spelling words this week and no spelling homework.

MATH
We will review problem solving strategies and do some Thanksgiving problem solving with place value and ordering numbers. We’ll continue working on writing 3 digit numbers in standard/expanded form and also showing numbers with hundreds, tens, and ones blocks.
No math homework this week!

SOCIAL STUDIES/SCIENCE
We explored multiple types of systems this week! We will work on some additional experiments on sound. Predictions and observations will be recorded in our science journals.


THANK YOU and Reminders
Thank you to Alison Rogers for stuffing Monday folders in November!
Thank you to Susan Kung for Treasure Chest items and headphones!
No Math homework due on Tuesday
No Spelling Words this week
Our Turkey Trot Time is Tuesday from 11:10- 12:00 and you are invited!
Thanksgiving Holidays- Nov. 25th-27th
You can still send in headphones for your child to use during work stations.


CLASS NEEDS
We need more Play Dough for the Making Words portion of our work stations. This is a favorite of the class, and it helps them practice spelling words each week.

November 16-20

CAN FOOD DRIVE
The food drive goes through Thursday, when we will fill the POD with all the cans the children have brought in to donate. Our class has done a wonderful job! Please continue to send in as many cans and jackets as you are able to donate.

READING
This week we begin our research on our family heritage. We will make a research plan and start gathering resources. One resource will be an interview. Those will come home in Monday folders for you to help out with and return on Tuesday. We will focus on prefix/suffix for our language arts this week. We will also work on retelling stories that we read.

WRITING
We have finished with our Rude Mule contraction stories, and those will go out into the hallway. This week we will begin a persuasive Turkey story. We will begin by reading Twas the Night Before Thanksgiving.

SPELLING:
Pattern: long "e" words

Words: beehive, beaver, between, sneeze, reason, least, dream, feast, beach, treat, need, green, clean, please, mean, stream, street, scream, team, three

Challenge Words: spaghetti, machine

MATH
We will review problem solving strategies and then have an assessment over 2-digit adding and subtracting without re-grouping. Later this week we start place value to 999. We’ll be writing 3 digit numbers in standard form and also showing them with hundreds, tens, and ones blocks. We will look for patterns on the hundreds chart.
Students will also build, write, and say numbers.

SOCIAL STUDIES/SCIENCE

Last week our class got creative with recyclable goods! To wrap up our unit on natural resources, the students were asked to build an item out of recyclable goods. We read a book about children in other countries who build their toys out of trash, and then tried to creat their own toys out of the materials that so many of you sent in. The students really enjoyed this project, and I hope that they shared their creations with you over the weekend.

This week, we will begin talking about systems. In this unit, students will discover that systems are "parts working together to make something function properly." We will look at many living and non-living systems throughout the week.

THANK YOU and Reminders

Thank you to Alison Rogers for stuffing Monday folders in November!
Math homework due on Tuesday
Family heritage interview due on Tuesday
Holiday pictures and retakes- Thursday, Nov. 19th
Family Science Night- Thursday, Nov. 19th
Thanksgiving Holidays- Nov. 25th-27th
Caraway “can drive” is still on! We fill the POD on Thursday afternoon
You can still send in headphones for your child to use during work stations.


CLASS NEEDS
We need more Play Dough for the Making Words protion of our work stations. This is a favorite of the class, and it helps them practice spelling words each week.

Our Treasure Chest is in need of donations. Any items that you could send in would be greatly appreciated!

November 9-13

Language Arts/Reading:
The class is enjoying working in reading groups and doing reading work stations. We will work on coming up with a main idea by reading passages and stories in our reading groups. We will continue to work on Making Connections, Inferencing and Visualizations in our groups.

Writing
This week we are working on contractions in writing. We will read books with contractions and write short stories that use a lot of contractions. These short stories should be published and out in the hall by the end of this week.

Spelling
Our spelling and phonics is focused on contractions.
Spelling Words: you’re, I’ll, I’ve, can’t, won’t, doesn’t, there’s, haven’t, I’m, it’s, they’re, aren’t, wasn’t, weren’t, wouldn’t, hasn’t, we’re, let’s, isn’t, didn’t
Bonus Words: shouldn’t and might’ve

Spelling Book Pages are:
Unit 29 pages 192-196.

Math:
We will use problem solving to work on double digit addition and subtraction. There are some fun games like Tic-Tac-Toe we will play to finish this unit. We will use mental math and traditional algorithms. We will also use tens frames and ones/tens blocks to help with this.

Science/Social Studies:
This week, we will begin our unit on natural resources. We will discuss weather patterns, seasonal patterns, and natural hazards in Texas. We will also work on identifying ways we use natural resources and how we can replenish and conserve them. We are doing a project next week that involves making new objects out of old things that we would normally throw away/recycle.

We will need:
- Old boxes, plastic containers, pipe cleaners, leaves, paper, jar tops, artificial flowers, baskets, chains, mismatched socks, etc.
- Clean please (food items)
- No glass
- Send in a bag on or before Wednesday, Nov. 11th

Thank you for your help with this :) Please send the “recycle/throw away” items for our project by Nov. 11th.

Thank you and Reminders:
• Thank you, Alison Rogers-Monday folders for November!!!
• Math homework due on Tuesday
• TAG informational meeting- Tuesday, Nov. 10 at 6:30 in the library.
• Early Release Day- Wednesday, Nov. 11th at 12:45, we will have lunch.
• Recycle or “throw away” items send by Nov. 11th.
• Field trip chaperones, Lydia and Shannan!

November 2-6

FIELD TRIP
We will take our first field trip to Inner Space Caverns on Friday, November 6th. All permission slips have been returned, and we are excited for our first learning experience outside of the classroom. Thank you to Lydia Wolf and Shannan Hall for chaperoning this trip. Please send a labeled disposable lunch with your child (NO lunch boxes, please). We will leave at 9am and will return by 2pm.

READING

Work Stations arw going really well, and the students are enjoying this part of our day! This week, we will begin to focus on making connections to the text (text to self, text to text, and text to world). When reading with your child at home, please consider asking them about connections they are making to the text. We will also continue to work on Visualizing stories as we read them.

WRITING

This week, we will finish our creative writing assignment based on the book, The Little Old Lady Who Wasn't Afraid of Anything. The students have been using their imaginations to create a story about a Little Kid Who Wasn't Afraid of Anything. These stories should be finished and published by the end of the week.

SPELLING:

Pattern: long a

Words: brain, steak, daisy, highway, raisin, playpen, railroad, subway, waiter, weigh, taste, play, way, train, nail, afraid, break, eight, away, always

Challenge Words: Wednesday, straight
Workbook pages: Unit 13, pages 96-100.

MATH

We will add and subtract with tens and ones (two digit numbers). We have focused on solving these problems with mental math but will now teach the traditional algorithm.

SOCIAL STUDIES

This week, we will finish our unit on Landforms. Students will be assessed on Wednesday and Thursday in a hand-on performance task.


OTHER

Please bring your library books on Thursday!
It's not too late to send in headphones for your child. Please consider this option to eliminate the spread of lice and germs.

THANK YOU!

Thank you to Alex's family for the cookie sheet! We now have enough for each table group to do magnetic words.
Thank you to Susan Kung and Kellen Bradford for helping with our Pumpkin Lab activities!
Thank you to The Hughes for our October Monday folders!
Thank you to Alison Rogers for November Monday Folders!


COMING SOON

Report Cards sent home, November 2nd

Field Trip to Inner Space Caverns, November 6th

Talent Show, November 6t, 6:30pm

Wanted: Partner Books!
If you're wanting to make a class donation, we would love to add these books to our "Read to Someone" element of the Daily 5.