Halloween Week

Spelling Words:  (for Friday, Oct. 31)

bat,   cat,   owl,   candy,   ghost,   pumpkin,   trick,    October,     skeleton,    moon,    costume,   treat

Halloween Party:

For Halloween this year we will be making a trail mix for a snack.  We are asking that you send in 1 cup of a snack that can be included in a trail mix.  For example: cereal, pretzels, raisins, popcorn, dried fruits, etc.  Please send this in by Thursday, October 30^th so that we can put it together for the students to enjoy on Friday during our Halloween celebrations.

After lunch, we will go to computer lab as usual.  Then the children will get their costumes on.  We will be having a costume parade with the rest of the elementary at 1:00pm.  We are planning to walk downtown if the weather cooperates, and we would like an audience!  If the weather is less than favorable, we will parade throughout the school.

 Please send your child to school in regular school clothes.  We will change into our costumes after lunch.  Please send your child’s costume to school in a bag with his/her name on it.  It might be a good idea to label their costume parts as well to be sure that each child wears and goes home with their own costumes.  Also, please help your child practice getting into his/her costume so that it can be done independently at school.

Upcoming Events:

Library – Friday, Oct. 31

No school – Monday, Nov. 3  (professional development day for teachers)

Report cards – Wed. Nov. 5
No school – Thursday, Nov. 6 – parent teacher conferences

October News!

Reading:  The children have been reading a lot!  We spend 20-30 every day reading to self and then spend more time reading as a group and with a partner.  The children started reading non-fiction last week in our anthology.  The children are finding the key details in the stories, discussing the author’s purpose and making connections to other stories.  We’ve also talked about having “good fit” books in the book boxes.  If your child brings home a book to read and it is too hard (more than 5 words on the page are unknown) or too easy (your child breezes through it very quickly) then it was not a good fit book. 

Phonics:  The children are working on long vowel sounds with the magic e.  Our spelling words will include long and short vowel words, high-frequency words and some review words.

Math:  The children are learning different strategies for adding.  We’ve worked on making 10 (using 10-frames) and the doubles (3+3, 6+6, etc.)  We are now learning about turn-around facts and how that can help us.  We will review <, > and missing numbers on a number grid.  The children are reviewing adding change and odd/even numbers.  We should be having the unit 2 math test next week (Oct. 24)

This month’s birthdays:

Alaysia – Oct. 14

Eli – Oct. 20

Lucas – Oct. 23

Karly – Oct. 26

This month’s events: 

Library – Oct. 17 and Oct. 31

Delayed start – Monday, Oct. 20

Picture re-takes – Wednesday, Oct. 22

Title 1 Night – Tuesday, Oct. 28 (come out for dinner and some activities)

Halloween Party – Friday, Oct. 31 (afternoon)

Sept. 29 News!

Reading:  We are reading more fiction stories this week.  Last week we discussed what realistic fiction stories are and compared them to the stories of the previous week’s stories that were fantasy.   Book-It will be starting Oct. 1.  Your child will bring home a calendar and for every day that he/she reads for 20 min, please initial and have your child color in the square.  At the end of the month, I’ll award Pizza Hut coupons to all who have met the goal!

Spelling:  Our spelling words this week will include 2-letter blend words as well as some of the high frequency words. Please help your child practice.  The list will come home with your child tonight.

High-Frequency Words:  she, by, boy, girl, he, small, what, were, want, here

These are words that we frequently find in our stories. 

Math:  This week your child will be taking the unit 1 math test on Wednesday.  We are reviewing for it in class.  Our first unit covered skills taught in 1^st grade so the children should do well on it.  We have also started “Rocket Math”.  This is a timed math test.  All of the children are starting with addition.  The goal is to complete 23-25 addition facts in one minute.  As your child progresses through that, he/she will start o subtraction.

Coins for Kids:  Thank you to all who brought in coins (and dollars) for the Coins for Kids campaign.  Your generosity is appreciated!  We will continue to collect for World Hunger Relief through Oct. 10.

Johnny Appleseed Day:  On Friday, Sept. 26, we celebrated Johnny Appleseed’s birthday.  The kids enjoyed reading about Johnny Appleseed and finding out some facts about him.  We did stations in the afternoon and the children got to do apple seed math, color a mystery picture and use the story to answer questions about Johnny Appleseed.  We ended the day enjoyed some hot applesauce.  Most of the kids really liked it, though I think I put too much cinnamon in it.

This week’s events: 

Tuesday: music class

Wednesday:  P.E. class, math test

Thursday:  P.E. class

Friday:  spelling test, library