Wednesday, November 9th

Well, this has been a fascinating week thus far. The kids can't seem to figure out what day it is because of Election Day yesterday...if I had a nickel for every time they asked if it was Monday...Anyways, I hope every one enjoyed their day off and found the time to exercise your right to vote!


Reading: This week we are focusing our comprehension skill on Main Idea/Topic and Key Details. Students have been working on this skill since the beginning of the year and are getting better and better as we practice more. This is still a complicated, higher-level thinking skill.


Our stories this week and next will focus on Native American folktales and legends. This week we have discussed what it means to be a folktale or a legend. To demonstrate the concept we played the game, telephone where a message starts at one end of the line and is transferred from student to student until it reaches the other end of the line. It was interesting to see what details were left out or changed by the end of the game. Do you have any legends or stories that have been passed down to you by your mothers or grandfathers? This would be something neat to share with your little one!


Math: Well, we have finally moved on from place value and are now comparing numbers to 20. While this sounds like a simple task it truly is not! We are not only comparing using phrases "greatest" and "least" but we are also finding out how many more and how many less between two sets of numbers. Right now everything is very concrete and we are using many manipulatives; however, by the Thanksgiving Break students will be expected to do this through word problem only without the use of manipulatives.


On another note, I would like to share some of the equations students have been sharing during our "Incredible Equations" portion of Calendar Math. Just to get you up to speed, in Calendar Math we focus our studies around the number of days we have been in school. For example, today we made Incredible Equations for the number 60. Some of those equations included 5 x 12, 10 x 6, 25 + 25 + 10...I mean, WOW! We are really raising the bar here, folks! On Monday we got a gasp from an observer when one of the students gave the following equation for the number 59 -  (5 x 10) + 9. Ha! I was so impressed and this just goes to show how much our students really do pick up on everything that we say and teach.


Veteran's Day: This week in Social Studies we are learning about soldiers and what our soldiers and veterans do to help us keep our rights and freedoms as American citizens. Today we made a word web to describe all of the things that soldiers do for our country. Tomorrow we will be working on some patriotic activities (which I very much appreciate all of your help in getting together) and I look forward to sharing this activity with you all.


Please consider coming to the Veteran's Day lunch at Stonewall. This will be a wonderful treat for all of our Veterans and families of the community! Let me know by tomorrow if you plan on attending this lunch.


Reminder:
**Please send in 1 dollar for an in-school performance on Friday