It's October!!

Curriculum

Reading:
We learned about our last two Daily 5 Stations this week.  Students now know how to Read to Self, Read to Someone, Practice Writing, Learn Words and Listen to Reading.  Next week, students will have the opportunity to participate in all of these stations daily.  Students will also begin learning about decoding strategies.  We will begin with Eagle Eye and Lips the Fish.  Here is a brief description of all of the strategies.  When you are reading at home, you can encourage your child to use these two strategies (Eagle Eye and Lips the Fish) when they come to unknown words.

Book Baggies:
Your child came home with a bag of 6 books today.  We will change out these books every Friday.  Students should have three different levels of books.  This is done purposefully to help your child be successful but also push them to grow as readers.  Please help the students keep their books organized by always keeping them in their baggie.  Included in the bag, was a bookmark and a tracking sheet.  Please keep these with the bag.  One side is for us to track how many books each student has and for you to verify that they did bring these books home. The other side is for students to track their reading at home.  For each day they read 15-20 minutes, students should color in a star. 

Writing:
This week students will wrap up their concept books.  We will then work on a picture project that we would like to display in the hallway.  Students will need to come up with a quote, a word and an I will...statement.  These will all be related to a goal they have for this year.  

Math:
We wrapped up our first math unit this week.  Next week, we will begin Unit 2 which focuses on Addition and Addition strategies. We will begin by learning about the "counting on" strategy.

Unit 2 Skills
o I can find pairs of numbers that add to 10
o I can use strategies to add
o I can label my counts
o I can explain how I solved problems
o I can write number models

Unit 2 IXL Skills - Students may use IXL to help them practice these skills.

Science/Social Studies:
We did several team building exercises this week in order to prepare us for working in groups for our next social studies unit.  The next unit is about families.  Students will learn about different kinds of families, the members, the roles and responsibilities of different members and family traditions.  Next week, we will be introducing the unit and beginning to explore what we will need to know in order to figure out how to define a family.  Please look for a note early next week about students completing a family timeline at home. We will provide more information and materials on Monday or Tuesday.

MakerSpace/Play
Our Friday MakerSpace/Play time so far has really been a time for students to practice working together by playing games, building structures, completing puzzles, and creating.  Next week, I would like to continue this, but I would like students to be able to build a bit more through the use of cardboard.  If you have any old shoe, cereal, tissue, etc. boxes, please send them in any time for us to use!  We could also use egg cartons or paper towel/toilet paper rolls.  The students would LOVE to create with these items!  

October Homework
Here is a link to the October Play Based Homework! 

Important Dates

October 11: Fun Run Final Pledge and Shout Out Due Date
October 13: Buddy Time (Wear Deerfield shirts or green)
October 14: Fun Run (9:40am-10am)
October 20: LEAD time (Wear Deerfield shirts or green)
October 27: Cabin Time (Wear Deerfield shirts or green)