Happy Holidays!

I just want to take the opportunity to wish all of my students and families a VERY HAPPY HOLIDAY season!  Thank you for all your cooperation this year and look forward to 2014 with your child!  See you in January!

Sequence of Events-AH! Late Post!

Each week we have a different skill we practice and learn about in our reading/language arts class.  Last week, we learned about sequence of events or, putting story events in order.  One of the activities we did was called a sequence circle.  First, we read the book, Gracias The Thanksgiving Turkey.

After reading, students discussed the main events of the book.  Then, with guidance they completed a sequence circle stating the main events in order.  Here's a look at what they did!

*Just realized I wrote up this post prior to Thanksgiving and forgot to post it up on the blog!  Better late than never!  Enjoy*

SNOW DAY?

Hello all!  Today we received that very special gift of a snow day!  Not sure where the snow is yet, but I hear it's on its way!  First of all, thank you to all the parents who came out in that nasty weather yesterday for Parent Conference Day!  I enjoyed meeting with each on of you!
Over the past few weeks we have been working on Fact Families in our math class.  Here is a resource for triangular flash cards to help your child practice their fact families at home:

MATH TEST FRIDAY!

Hi everyone and Happy Monday!  In the classroom we are already looking ahead to Friday.  Students will be taking their first term two test this Friday, November 22nd.  Some things you can be reviewing this week with your child are :

• time to the hour
• addition and subtraction facts to 20
• related facts (6+4=10, 4+6=10, 10-6=4 and 10-4=6)
• true/false equations (11=7+5, true or false)

Balance and Motion

In science we've been learning about balance and motion.  This unit has provided students with MANY opportunities to experiment and investigate with balance and motion.  Here is a quick review of what we've done.

First, students learned how to balance a paper crawfish with and without counterweights (clothespins).

Pretty cool, huh?

After learning a little about balance students made their own mobiles which they got to take home.  We have also investigated the difference between spinning and rolling.  To learn about spinning students observed and created their own tops.

Students also investigated wheels and axles.  They created several different wheels to go on their axles and tested each one out by rolling it down a ramp.  Students came to a consensus that the two small discs worked as the best wheels.

Now we move on to discussing Thanksgiving in Social Studies! 

Related Facts

Parents, if you've been struggling with related facts with your child at home, you're not alone!  This has proven to be quite hard to understand in the classroom as well. Don't worry, we've spent a few days on related facts and this is to gear your learner up for fact families in a few weeks.  Just so you can help at home, here is a little more information about related facts.

If you have 3 numbers, let's say, 5, 6, and 11, these can be written as addition and subtraction related facts.  For example, 5+6=11, 6+5=11, 11-5= 6 and 11-6=5.  Here is a little more of what what did in the classroom:

This is our "Math Talk" board which students can refer to during our lesson.  Black writing is from yesterday and red writing was added today.

We started today's lesson with a story problem.  "There were seven children on the roller coaster. Three more hopped on. How many children are on the roller coaster now?"  Students used their cubes and scratch paper to help them create the problem.

Then students were given another part to the word problem.  "Seven students got off the roller coaster.  How many are on the ride now?"

This showed them the related facts for 10, 7 and 3.

For their partner work today, they played a game where one partner rolled two dice and wrote the addition fact for the two numbers.  Then, their partner wrote the subtraction fact for those same numbers.  It turned out like this:

Again, if your child is "just not getting it", fear not, we will be coming back to related facts in a few weeks.

TGIF!

Happy Friday, everyone!  I don't know about you, but I've been thinking it has been Friday ever since Wednesday!  Today I am posting about our Friday Folders! Yes, parents you know them very well.  For my other teacher folk cruising the blog, every Friday I send each student home with a Friday Folder.  In this folder is student work, important papers for home, and a weekly behavior log that is signed and returned each Monday.   I have been using Friday Folders for many years and I just love the home and school connection they provide.  In case you didn't know, I am extremely organized and I feel like these folders help keep my kiddos a little more organized as well.  One of the great things about these is that I know important papers are getting home to parents instead of lost in a backpack or on the bus!

Here are the folders. This year they're red!

One side is for things that need to be signed and returned. The other side is for things that can be kept for display at home.

 

Hope everyone has a great weekend!