December 6 Update...

Hi Parents,

We've had a busy week and have learned lots of new things! Check out below to see what has been happening in Room 315...

Phonics/Grammar:  We learned how to spell common compound words. We also reviewed what a pronoun is and how to ensure we have correct pronoun-antecedent agreement. We learned pronouns and their antecedents must agree in number and gender (example: Annie drove her car. The dogs licked their bowls.)

Reading:  We continued reading The One and Only Ivan and learned new vocabulary as we practiced our decoding skills. We worked in small groups to read nonfiction passages. We also learned how to look for key words in questions and then find those same key words in a passage to help us correctly answer questions.  We continued the practice of using boxes and bullets when reading nonfiction to help us better understand what we are reading.

Writing: We wrote the "All About the Author" page for our informational books and we assembled our finished pieces. We added nonfiction text features to help our reader understand the information we wrote about.

Math:  We continued our work on AREA, learning how to apply our multiplication and division knowledge in order to determine unknown side length when give the area and one side length. We learned how to apply our AREA knowledge when answering word problems. We also reviewed the associative (multiplying three numbers) and the distributive (breaking apart a larger equation into two smaller equations) properties to help us correctly compute. We took the quarter two touchstone assessment to show what we've learned.

Class News...

Thank you to all who donated items for the stocking stuffers!  This activity has been a hit and has certainly helped us remain focused during this exciting month!

Thank you for supporting our Caring Coins fundraisers. Check out PECS for more important events coming up.

Be sure to check your child's folder today for important information regarding the KEMP GIVING TREE activity our class has decided to do together.  The time for collecting money is very short!  All the information you need can be found on the paper coming home today!

Be sure to go over your child's Math Inventory Report and Touchstone Assessment this weekend. I think it is a great idea to discuss this information with your child and make a plan for future goals related to Math.  We can't get where we are going without knowing what we want to accomplish!  Goal-setting is a great thing to start this year. We've discussed the importance of making a plan with very specific behaviors in order to attain that goal.