Monday, October 3rd

Hello, all! I hope everyone enjoyed this beautiful weekend and found time to relax and rejuvinate for this week. Can you believe it is already October? I can't...the time has just gone by so fast. Today we made our snack calendars for the month of October. This has been working very, very well with the kids...thanks to everyone for your help with this task!


Reading: This week we our big focus is montoring our comprehension through inner conversations. It is so incredibley important for kids to understand how a good reader reads- and a good reader reads by listening to that inner voice while they read. This may seem strange but this is actually quite a complex concept for some of our little guys and girls. Today, I modeled how to REALLY listen to that inner voice while reading a story. I introduced the kids to my special "thinking cap"- this cap helps me tap into those voices so I know I am thinknig while I'm reading. Later this week, students will be getting their very own thinknig caps...woohoo!


The phonics concept we are focusing on this week are the consonant digraphs "sh" and "th". Today we created words with "sh" at the beginning and at the "end" of the word. You will see the spelling words also correlate to this concept. **We took the spelling pretest today. I will be sending those home tomorrow. Remember- if your student gets a 100% on the pretest they do not have to take the test at the end of the week.


Our shared reading for this week is titled "Amphibians", take a look:


AMPHIBIANS
Living in water
or living on land,
Being an amphibian
Must be grand!


If I were a frog,
Salamander or toad,
I would jump in a lake
or crawl on a road.


Living in water
or living on land,
Being an amphibian
Must be grand!


Math: We are still working on our subtraction facts to 10 and, boy, have we come a long way since the beginning of the unit. Today we learned how to use number bonds to create subtraction sentences. Once we figured out how to do this we really got into some complex subtraction problems. Keep an eye out for the math sheet I send home each night. I try to grade student sheets as they finish so you know what they need the most help with. Check out the following math website: http://www.aplusmath.com/. This website has games for your student as well as printable flashcards!


Science: This week we are learning about amphibians. We will specifically study the life cycle of the frog and how this life cycle is similar to others that we have studied this year. We will also be finishing our books that we strated last week, The Diary of a Bee.


Reminders:
**Snack calendar went out today
**DEARABBY, Math Log due Friday