Help REES get a Lego Kit

Please send the following link out to your class:  http://www.donorschoose.org/project/support-stem/1406516/?rf=link-siteshare-2014-11-teacher_account-teacher_2614522&challengeid=20504505

 

It is to fund a lego kit for the STEM lab!

Thanks for your support!

School Family Update 11.10

Hope everyone is doing well! If your child participated in the Book Character Parade, a video describing their book character and book is on their padlet.

Reading
Students rotated through 3 groups on Tuesday-Thursday this week. Our reading was impacted by our field trip and STEM day. Every student worked with the -ap word family. We are practicing blending sounds to decode the word (sounding out words.) We also reviewed rhyming words. Your child should be able to identify rhyming words and come up with a rhyming word to a given word. For example, if I say tree a student could say bee, three, me, etc. Each group also practiced handwriting and reading a leveled book.

Next week, we will go back to our ten center rotation with the short i. Students will be sorting by medial (middle) sounds in three letter words. They will be listening and responding to the book The Amazing Turkey Race. During these centers, I will pull small groups to read books and work with magnetic letters to create words. In whole group reading, we will be working on onset and rime as well as making connections to stories.

Writing
Students have been working on informational writing. They should be able to tell you that informational writing provides facts and teaches you something. All students wrote facts about River Eves one day last week. The other days students were able to choose their topic.

Next week, students will be completing their final draft of informational writing. They will pick an animal and provide at least 3 facts. We will be going through the writing process. Their published pieces will be on their padlet in the next 2 weeks. Our next writing genre will be how-to's.

Social Studies
Students have been learning about Veteran's Day. Students know Veteran's Day is a holiday celebrated in November. We celebrate veterans. Veterans are people who were in the military. We discussed the different branches of military and that people in the military keep us safe. We made medals and wrote thank you's.

Next week, students will begin learning about Thanksgiving. We discuss the Pilgrims, Native Americans, and the first Thanksgiving. We will also discuss things we are thankful for. On Friday, students started practicing for our Thanksgiving performance. There is a yellow piece of paper that went home in their folders with more details. Our class will be turkey's so students should try and wear brown.

Math
We began our comparing unit last week. Students practiced using the vocabulary more, most, greater, less, least, and fewer. Students compared two groups of objects. On Friday, students compared numerals.

Next week, we will continue comparing numerals and introduce the greater than and less than signs. Using greater/less than signs is an extension of the standard.

In signed papers on Thursday, you will see your child's rubric from Unit 2. Please practice any standards that were not met.  Your child should be able to:

• write numerals 0-20
• count and label sets 0-20
• count to 100 by ones and tens
• count objects with 1:1 correspondence
• answer the question how many regardless of the arrangement of objects
• name a number one larger 0-9
• count on from a given number 0-100
• sort objects and order them from least to most

Other

• Thanks to everyone who turned in their homework on time for October. Homework is due the last day of each month. November homework will be due the day before Thanksgiving break. The homework calendar and reading log should be fully completed with the titles of books read on the back.
• We welcomed a new student last week. Theo is our new addition. Our school family now has 22 students. Please provide 22 snacks on your assigned day.
• Fall Festival, STEM, and Field Trip pics will be coming soon!

Save the Date

• International Night- Thursday, Nov. 13th 6-7:30. Come enjoy some tasty food. If your child attends, they will be part of a performance.
• Grandparent's Lunch November 20th
• Dad's Lunch November 21st
• Our lunch time is 10:56-11:26. Special seating is available for lunch guests.
• Thanksgiving Performance November 21st

Thank you,

Mrs. Daugherty

Resources

I have gotten some questions about good resources to review skills at home. Below are some that I can think of off the top of my head. I may add more later with the label resources. You can look along right side for the label.


Our kindergarten Website provides lined paper for writing. The homework calendar and newsletter can also be found there.

There is also a list of websites from our media center. Click here

Websites

www.starfall.com

www.abcya.com


Videos

www.brainpopjr.com

Letter Sounds Dr. Jean Alphardy

Counting Let's Get Fit

Counting by Tens Tens Song


Apps

Handwriting
ABC Alphabet
BT Handwriting
Alphabet Tracing

(These are my favorite because they show the children where they should start and what directions to form the letter. This is a good skill to practice.)

Sight Words
SightCards
SightWords by KidsLearn

ELA
ABC Ninja
Rhyming Bee
WordFamily
Jumbled Sentences 2
Spelling 2
Spelling Bug 2
HookedPhonics

Math
IXL Math


All of these resources are free!

Float and Sink

(Just saw this entry was saved and never published.)

One of the activities we did last week with our apples was a float and sink experiment. We spent a few days on floating and sinking. The kids really enjoyed it. The first day each table had the same set of materials and each child put one item in. We discussed as a class if the object floated or sunk. The next day there were various materials on the tables. Students investigated with different materials to discover 2 things that floated and 2 that sunk. They were asked to watch for clues or patterns to identify which items did what. The pictures below are from this day. The third day we discussed ideas and misconceptions about floating and sinking. We discussed it didn't matter if something had a whole (a plastic donut will float but a paperclip will sink.) Students learned that the weight of an object and its composition determine if an item will float or sink.