Hello families,
We've had another heart-filled week. Even with the excitement leading up to vacation students remained engaged in their learning throughout the week. We did notice our energy ran high more than usual so we did some extra mind and body practices to try to help us feel just right. We worked hard this week to have quieter transitions and use kind words all day.
In readers workshop we continue to read non-fiction books. We also practiced the decoding strategy of tapping individual sounds out and then crashing them back together in words. We did this with short and long words. We also looked for word families or other parts we know and then crashed the other sounds in to make words. Finally we looked at endings on words (s, ing, ed) and broke them off to figure out the base word and then crashed them back together to read the whole word.
In math workshop we reviewed our concepts on Monday and then had our end of unit test, or as I call it our "Show me what you know," on Tuesday. This went great! Many of these "show me's..." showed that we needed a little more practice modeling on paper how we know if equations are true or false. We looked at student samples and then practiced this on our own on Wednesday. We did lots of fact power this week, which the students love! On Thursday we also went to the 5th grade math game arcade! This was super fun to see games and math videos that the 5th graders have worked hard to create.
In writers workshop we continued to practice writing trick words/word wall words correctly. We also did some response to literature writing with The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats and the Scholastic News article of "A Real Snowy Day." We compared and contrasted the real and fictional events and thought about what we like to do on snowy days. We also did response to literature work with a new song, "5 Little Snowmen." We searched for missing words to finishing writing the song and then illustrated it to match the song the best we could.
On Tuesday the school heart monitor was filled again! On Friday we had our whole school celebration, pajama/comfy clothes day! We also got to watch "Monster's Inc." in the afternoon with the other K-2 classes. On Thursday we filled our class heart jar! We had our class celebration on Friday also. We built forts in the classroom and played and read together in them!
Thursday the 21st was the official first day of winter--the Winter Solstice. It's the longest night and shortest day of the year. We had a small Solstice Celebration on Friday (a day late) where we sang solstice and sun songs. We made wishes for ourselves, our families, our communities, and our world. We "lit" LED candles to remind us that even on the darkest day the light, warmth and hope will return. We also had a small solstice snack (sunny oranges) and Ms. Judy and I each gave the children a small gift. It was a beautiful celebration.
Next week is vacation. I hope you all have a wonderful week. See you in the new year!
Dates to Remember:
December 25 - January 2 - Winter Break -- No School
Wednesday January 3 - School resumes
Wednesday January 10 - Early Dismissal 12:15 -- Teacher In-Service
Monday January 15 - NO SCHOOL - Martin Luther King Jr. Day
Monday January 22 - Library 11 - 11:30
Have a great weekend!
❤ Mrs. Fox
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