What We’re Learning This Week: Week of January 16th

Reading:  We will be comparing the fiction stories, “Frog and Toad Together, in the Garden” and “Frog and Toad all Year: Down the Hill” from our reading anthology book.  We will continue to focus on the characters, setting, and major events in the story.  We will also focus on asking and answering questions about a text.  Finally, we will be comparing and contrasting adventures and experiences of characters in a text. Your child will continue to come home with a guided reading book to read in their “book in a bag.”  Please remember to practice reading your child’s book-in-a-bag with them.  Ask them comprehension questions, such as, “Who are the characters?”-discuss if the characters change and compare and contrast any characters, “What is the setting of the story?”, “What is the main idea?”, and “Tell me what happened in the beginning, middle, and end of this story.”  Please continue to practice reading the book in bag with your child when they do bring it home.  If they do not bring a new book home, they can read another book or work on raz-kids.  

Writing: We will continue our new informational/non-fiction writing unit.  We will explore non-fiction mentor texts.  Then we will chart topics that we feel we can write an informational book about.  This week, the children will really explore table of contents in the mentor texts, and they will write their own table of contents, which will include introduction, headings about their topic, and conclusion.  The students will use their table of contents as a planning sheet to help them write their informational books.  As the students write, they will of course continue to make sure their sentences make sense, start with capital letters, end with punctuation, include correct spelling based on what we have learned, and are written neatly.  I will continue to conference with students and reinforce the application of what we are learning.

Word Study/Spelling:

-Letter Name- word families: an, un, in

-Read and Write Fry Words- so, some, her, would, make

-Grammar- compound words and review of verb tense continued

Math: Our math lessons each day will include computational fluency, fact fluency, and core math instruction focused on the first grade common core math standards. Computational fluency will help the students to use the most effective and efficient strategies.  Fact Fluency is working with both addition and subtraction facts within 10.  Our end-of-the-year goal is to have students complete 15 addition facts in one minute and 15 subtraction facts in one minute.  Our core lessons will include hands-on math activities and games that support the common core.  This second semester, we will really focus on quickly adding and subtracting numbers to 10 and using that to add and subtract to 20.  This week we will also be working on number sentences with missing numbers in all positions.  Students will solve word problems within 20 and higher.  

3rd grading period Science and Social Studies:
Science: Basic needs of living things
Social Studies: Geography/Places and Regions

Homework: Continue working on homework log for the month. Thank you for your continued home support!

Extras:

-Please make sure you are sending your child with a peanut-free snack!

- Monday, January 15^th- Martin Luther King Jr. Day: No School

-Please remember to keep your child’s report card and return the sign envelope. Thank you!!!

-Field trip to Harmon Middle School: James, and the Giant Peach- Thursday, February 1^st. Please return signed permission slip.

 -Tuesday, January 23: Class Pictures

      -Princess Prom: Saturday, February 3^rd