The Week of October 27th

                                       

                               



On Tuesday, we did a fun spider web greeting during morning meeting! 






Classroom News
I hope everyone has begun the clean up process and has had their power restored! I apologize for the delay in this update... my family was without power until mid week, and I was sick on top of it all! There are HUGE trees down on my road with  power lines still down.  It looks like Waterville and Belvidere didn't get hit as hard as other places, and I'm thankful for that!

Reading and Spelling Homework

I am so happy to see how hard students are working on their reading homework each night! They are proud to share their work each day. Just a quick note on reading logs- if you choose to read more than one book per night, please write multiple books  in only one row. Each row is meant to record a night's reading, not single book titles. Everyone is doing such a great job remembering their book bags each day!  Thank you all for your help at home!  

Look for your Child's Spelling Homework on Monday!

Spelling homework will begin November  6th.  Each week, I will send a packet home on Monday in your child’s home-folder. It will include a brief outline of our learning targets and background information for you to help at home. Your child will have a word sort, and a trick word ( sight word) practice activity. Packets should  be completed at home or at homework club, and should be returned on Friday. Next week students will return their packets on Thursday because of the short week.

Waterville and Belivdere Long Ago and Today 

We are moving right along in  our study of the past and how it was the same or different from today! We finally got to try on all of the old fashioned clothing and compare it to the things we wear today! It was so much fun.  We also spent time playing old fashioned games. We learned how to play marbles, pick-up-sticks and The Game of Graces (which we played at the Shelburne Museum). Students really enjoyed playing these games and all commented how fun it was to play with each other! Next week we will begin our final student choice project. We will be creating our own mock village with Ms. Caswell's class! Students will work in small, mixed level groups to research, plan, create and share their part of the village. We are looking for parent volunteers and donations of supplies for this project. You will have an informational letter coming home on Friday. 

  

                                       

Pick up sticks!

Old fashioned marbles was so much fun! 

PAWS Celebration

On Friday, we celebrated filling up our PAWS jar! Children earn PAWS by showing Habits of Mind through our WES school rules. Teachers notice children begin persistent, being respectful, working together to solve problems and being safe at all times. We collect our PAWS in a special jar and when it is filled up, I choose one from the jar. One lucky student selects a way to celebrate our great work.  As we were reviewing our rules at the start of school, we brainstormed a list of celebrations together. On Friday, we enjoyed EXTRA RECESS and even saw a bald eagle soaring in the sky! 

                                                          

Math Workshop

In math we are finishing up our first unit of study! On Wednesday we used our shape pictographs to count up the total amount of shapes we collected through the month of October. Students collected shapes each day. We used a pictograph to keep track of our weekly collections. Students picked their favorite weekly collections from our graphs which identified shape type and quantity. Students created a composite shape from their favorite collection. We will be moving on to our next unit which will be focused on math fact strategies. Your child will be bringing home all of their work from this unit on Friday! Please ask them all about it! 

Readers' and Writers' Workshops

Students are doing a GREAT job during our readers' and writers' workshops. Our focus has been on activating our prior knowledge (our schema), and using that schema to help us connect with a character, feeling or part of the book. This week, we started a character study! We learned about external and internal traits, and students wrote about traits they notice in themselves.  Mrs. Bryce helped us to find "just right" books in a series that have strong and interesting characters. We unpacked our new books and began a read aloud called Mole and Mouse. We will work on identifying character traits and practiced retelling our books using the beginning, middle and end. Students will also focus on setting and problem/solution in the coming weeks.

In writing, students have selected a FAVORITE small moments story from their folders. We are working in small groups and in partnerships to revise and edit our pieces so that they can be PUBLISHED!! YAY! On Wednesday, students used a checklist to review the important parts of  a "small moment" story. We identified the things they are doing well, and things they may need to work more on!