Highlights Before Thanksgiving Break

Hello families,

We've had another fun week together. Can you believe we've had more than 50 school days already?

In readers workshop we continue practicing strategies that good readers use to figure out hard or puzzling words. This week we practiced: check the picture, look at all parts of the word, go back to the beginning and get a running start, go past the puzzling word, and double check--does it look right? does it make sense?

Many of our writers have finished up their first small moment narratives (or are still in the revising/editing process). We learned about revising our work by adding in words with writers carrots or revision strips to make our writing even better. We learned how to check if we have all the parts a small moment story needs. In particular we checked for a beginning to get the reader ready, the story told in order using transitional words, and a good, satisfying ending. We also learned how to edit our writing. We looked for: spaces between words, punctuation, capital letters at the beginnings of sentences and names, and current word wall words spelled correctly.

We were excited about the snow this week! It's that time of year to make sure your child comes to school with appropriate outer wear. Please send you child to school each day with: a warm jacket, snow pants, mittens or gloves, a hat, winter boots for outside, sneakers or shoes for inside. Having all of these things makes it easier to have fun in the snow at recess! We do go outside for recess any day we can! If the "feels like" temperature is less than 10 degrees Fahrenheit we do stay indoors that day.

We only had a few days of math this week because of the half day and some other special events later in the week. We worked a lot on combinations, or different ways, to make 10. We are working hard now to use a pattern to help us figure out all the combinations. It's fun to see turn-around facts too!

On Thursday we were lucky enough to go see the middle/high school play, Alice in Wonderland. It was such a great show! Friday was a snow day!

Please be timely to your conference time next Monday. Many conferences are back-to-back so need to begin and end on time. I look forward to meeting with you all to check in about your child's progress this year! Please also note that there is no school for kids for all of next week.

Dates to Remember:

• Family Conferences, 8am-8pm Monday 11/19 (No School for students due to conferences all day.)
• Thanksgiving Break - No School Tuesday 11/20 - Friday 11/23
• Monday 11/26, School resumes
• Thursday 12/13 Winter Concert 6:30 pm start; students arrive in classroom 6:00 pm
• Wednesday 12/19 Half Day - 12:15 dismissal
• Winter Break - No School Monday 12/24 - Wednesday 1/2
• Thursday 1/3, School resumes

Have a great weekend!
❤ Mrs. Fox