Welcome Fall!

By , 10/04/2017

Dear Families,

Happy October! Thank you for getting the trip slips/money and Scholastic News Magazine money to us so fast. We greatly appreciate it. If you have not yet sent in your trip slip and money for the field trip, and $6.50 for Scholastic News, please do so as soon as possible. We have scheduled our first birthday celebration for October 31, 2017. This is for our September and October babies. Once the date gets closer we will have more information (times etc.). Here are some photo’s from the in class trip with the Urban Park Rangers:

202:

Here is a quick look at the week ahead:

In Writer’s Workshop, our students are moving through the writing process. We have grown an idea into a draft, revised the draft by either adding to it or taking away unnecessary parts, and now we have begun to edit. We spoke about the purpose of editing and how it not only helps writers but readers as well. We will be focusing on sentence structure, punctuation and capital letters. Our editing list will grow as our children’s writing becomes more sophisticated. We will begin to publish by the end of the week. We are excited to start to see our work finally coming together.

201:

In Reader’s Workshop, we are beginning a new unit. Throughout this unit we will be visiting different types of narrative texts as well as a shared read aloud, Puppy Power. This unit will help us focus on going deeper with comprehension through the lens of friendship. We will be thinking about how books work, how readers think, how readers build relationships throughout books, how readers deepen their understanding of narratives through texts/stories, and more.

This year, we will be using the website ReadWorks as a tool to help support reading comprehension at home. Below are the instructions to log in. We will be setting up individualized assignments for your kids to work on, which will include a reading passage and a set of questions every week or two. Assignments will be aligned to themes we are covering in school whenever possible. We are trying to instill a sense of independence and responsibility early on. We do not assign homework often but when we do it is the student’s responsibility to complete it. An assignment will be posted by friday, October 6, 2017 for your child to work on over the three day weekend.

201 Log In:

How to get students to their assignments

Have students go tohttp://www.readworks.org/student
Students enter class code XDY7AP
Tell your students that their default password is 1234

Note: Students can change their passwords when they log in, and you can change student passwords on this page.

202 Log In:

How to get students to their assignments

Have students go tohttp://www.readworks.org/student
Students enter class code BMU5SZ
Tell your students that their default password is 1234

Note: Students can change their passwords when they log in, and you can change student passwords on this page.

In Math, students have been working on developing strategies for solving word problems. We have been looking at different types of problems, including combining and removal problems. Later this week, we will also be exploring comparison problems (Sam has 23 pencils. Meg has 45 pencils. How many more pencils does Meg have?) and missing part problems (There are 29 passengers on the train. At the subway stop, some more passengers get on. Now there are 37 passengers on the train. How many passengers got on at the stop?). Our goals are to interpret and solve the problems, write equations that match the action of the problems, and communicate our thinking clearly. We have also started exploring the connection between addition and subtraction, since many subtraction problems can be solved using an addition strategy.

This week in Science, we will be discovering what it means to observe things around us. We will begin by observing rocks. We will talk about things such as color, texture, shape, size etc. We will be then be changing the conditions that the rocks are in, such as adding water. We will be taking note of the changes and discussing what can cause these changes to happen.

Important Dates:

No School 10/9
Picture Day 10/10
Staten Island Museum Trip 10/16
Birthday Celebration 10/31

Have a great week!

Ms. Mathis and Ms. Anne