ANNOUNCEMENTS AND REMINDERS:
Welcome back to school! I hope everyone enjoyed their February break.
First I would like to give a BIG shout out to everyone who helped me deliver the valentines last Friday! It was such a wonderful experience and I feel so lucky to have been able to share it with all of your and your children. Such a special day!
Monday are outdoor science days. Unfortunately the weather has not been cooperating with us lately. However, please remember to send your child to school with ALL of their winter gear on Mondays just in case.
Today, Team Howard received accelerometers. They are watches that the students wear to keep track of their activity. These are a part of the PEP grant the district received. Students are asked to wear these watches until Friday. They can keep them on all the time. There is no need to take the watch off to sleep or to shower. We would like to collect data on your child’s normal activity level during the week. This means, whatever they normally do for play or exercise is what they should be doing this week as well. If you have any questions about the watches or the PEP grant, I encourage you to reach out to Ms. Croteau.
Please remember to return those GREEN autobiography homework papers by tomorrow! There is a front and back side to them. We’ll be needing these papers to begin our next writing project.
Wednesday is the 100th day of school! Is there anyone who would be willing to donate 100 plastic cups to our classroom for a fun project? Short notice, I know, but we’ll need them by tomorrow. If you are able to donate, it would be greatly appreciated!
Homework packets are due on Thursday!
February spelling test will be on Thursday! The test will cover units 17, 18, and 19.
Mrs. Thibodeau will be coming to visit us on Friday! She’ll be going over the I CARE principals from the district. Your child recognizes with them most as... I care about myself, I care about others, and I care about my school.
THIS WEEK IN...
ELA: Time to revamp and reenergize! This week, we’ll be learning some new and exciting ways to make the Daily 5 exciting again. Here are some of the things we’ll be introducing:
iPad book reports: Today, your child reviewed lots of things about the iPads. You should see a purple letter from me come home today describing all of the things we reviewed. This week, we’ll begin learning how to use the iPads to help us make digital book reports. After reading a book, Team Howard will have the chance to create a digital book report using the iPad. They will be able to summarize the story and add their own commentary deepening their thinking about the book. They can talk about the best part in the book, how they would rate the book, what they would change, etc. They may even choose a way to give the book a hashtag! We are so looking forward to all of our future digital products.
Fluency Work: We have been practicing fluency throughout the year, but now it’s time to dig deeper! With a new read to someone menu, we’ll be able to practice our fluency goals in many different ways. This week, we’ll introduce poetry, alphabet flow, read the room with expression, copy cat reading, speedy sight words, and a read to someone rubric. Poetry is a great way for us to practice how words flow together in different rhythms. Alphabet flow is an activity where students are reading letters of the alphabet while paying attention to the hidden punctuation. This helps them focus solely on the punctuation rather than on decoding words as well. With the help of some emotion cards, we’ll practice reading in all kinds of voices. We’ll use our happy voice, sad voice, disgusted voice, scary voice, and more! Copy cat reading is where one person reads a page or paragraph and then the next person reads the same page or paragraph thinking about reading expression. Speedy sight words is a chance for us to review the sight words from the Dolch list and challenge ourselves to recall them as quickly as possible! Finally, the read to someone rubric will address reading rate, expression, accuracy, and paying attention to punctuation.
Writing Revamp: Writing can be a tricky subject for a lot of students so my goal is to keep it as exciting as possible! This week, I’ll be introducing some new writing stations. These stations will include: create a character, using a picture prompt, creating a story to match a setting, using picture cues to help write a story with a beginning, middle, and end, problem station, and five senses writing. All of these stations will help us practice our writing goals.
Science: Today, we reviewed the three state of matter and also words we can use to describe them. For example, a solid could be hard or soft. A liquid could be sticky or slimy. We even did an experiment to see if indeed our room was filled with air even though we can’t see it. Try this at home: put your arms out and spin in a circle. Do you feel something on your hands and arms? That’s air! It’s pushing against your skin as you move.
Math: Our place value flexible groups continue this week. We will also continue practicing our math fact goals. Remember, your child should be mastering a fact family every other week. The more they practice, the faster they meet their goals at school. We’ll also practice our money goals. This week, we’ll practice putting different coins together to make different amounts of money. We are also working on odd and even numbers. We’ll work with number 1-20 and prove that they are even or odd with a doubles or near doubles number sentence.
100th day of school fun: We’ll be presented with various challenges through the day. First, we’ll be challenged to build a 100 cup structure. Then, we’ll use a photo editing program to help us draw inspiration for our writing prompt, “When I’m 100 years old.” Finally, we’ll be given a time challenge... “In 100 seconds, I can...” We’ll see how many jumping jacks we can do, how many hops, how many times we can write our names, blink our eyes, and stand on one foot.
Read Aloud: We are beginning a journey into the wonderful world of The BFG by Roald Dahl.
Scholastic News: We’ll work on several issues this week. First, we’ll read about Abraham Lincoln’s journey to the White House and more about his childhood home. We’ll learn more about Chinese New Year. Finally, we’ll learn all about how Jackie Robinson changed baseball forever.
