Week of October 11-13

Thank you to all who came for our Fall parent/teacher conferences! We have set some great goal for our kids and it's always nice to meet and discuss how things are going in the classroom. As always, if you have any questions or concerns, please let me know!

This week in the classroom, we continued to talk about the changing season and what it means for it to be Fall. With the help of a parent volunteer and Scholastic Weekly Reader, kids learned a song about Autumn leaves falling down.

In math, we looked closely at the shapes of the circle and square during math and also practiced our number poem that helps us remember how to form the numbers. Soon we will begin the concept of symmetry, so anything around the house that you notice to be symmetrical, point this out to your kid so that when we talk about it they can better apply their knowledge. In reading we have been stretching words out to hear all the sounds (beginning, middle, and end). This will help us become better readers and give kids a tool to use to decode new words. We also read a new Sight Word Reader book titled Me Too! This is a fun story about a little brother trying to be just like his older brother that teaches kids the new sight words "me" and "too." These words will be added to our Word Wall next week, so please encourage your kid to use the resources in the room, like the Word Wall, to help them spell words. In writing, we did topics beginning with our letter of the week "a." We described an alligator, the letter a, an ant, as well as our oral language picture of a kid playing in puddles. Our goal in writing is to put spaces between words, so as your kid writes at home, please remind them if they forget spaces. We also began creating a class book devoted to words kids already know how to read from their world! After the book is made, I will pick super kids to borrow the book over the weekend so that families can read it together.

Last week bookmarks went home for kids to list books they read. This is for Scholastic's Book Challenge. If kids in our class read 10 books each by December 17, 2010, Scholastic will donate one million books to kids in need! As your child reads and fills in the titles of their books, they can bring the bookmark to me and I will add it to our wall then enter the books on the website. So far 4 kids have finished their book marks and we are 210 books away from reaching our goal of 250 books! Great job kids! Next week I will send the November and Holiday book club catalogs home. The due date for the November books ordered is November 15.

Be on the lookout for a slide show on this blog highlighting photos kids have taken for Fall. Please email or give me hard copies of Fall pictures your kid may want to show the class and I can add them in.