Curriculum update

It has been a busy time in Room 16.  We had our first science quiz on the order of the planets.  As you all saw this week, I will send home all quizzes for a parent signature as a means to keep you informed of progress.  Please send them back in a timely manner, and we will place them in their portfolio. We have moved on to study the moon, and will be keeping a moon calendar for the month of October.  Please have your child take a look at the moon each day/night, and do a quick sketch of what it looks like.  It is interesting to document the changes that the moon goes through over the course of a month, and makes this somewhat intangible topic a bit more real. 

We are taking our first math assessment this week.  The topic is place value. We have been rounding, comparing, and naming large numbers, as well as completing numerous activities to develop number sense.  These skills are fundamental for all of the math we will do, and are something that we will continue to reinforce and review throughout the year.

Reader’s Workshop is in full swing.  The children are working hard selecting just right books, and building stamina.   We are also looking at the genre of the books we read, as well as basic story elements such as setting, characters and plot.

In Writer’s Workshop, we spent a lot of time this week working on leads for our personal narratives that will encourage our readers to want to read our stories.  The children created a setting lead, a dialogue lead, and an action lead, and are now working on combining them into one very strong lead that includes all three elements.  These tasks have required a lot of persistence, and it has been inspiring to watch them put their best effort into them.

We have been reviewing previously learned skills in Fundations, as well as learning new concepts.  Ask your child to tell you about why vowels are so important, and what new tri-graph they learned about this week.  Also, we have started cursive practice beginning with the loop letters, l, e, and h.  Please ask your child to describe how each letter is formed, and make sure they are using the directions as they practice at home.

In social studies, we have begun looking at the Wampanoag tribe.  We will be researching them closely before studying the Pilgrims, so that we can compare and contrast the different cultures.

Our first poll of the year ended this week. Only one person responded, and they hoped to see pictures of their children on the blog.  I will work on that this week, and hopefully have something to post next weekend.  Have a great week!