Wednesday, November 12, 2014

November 10th-14th


We have had a great week this week!

Thematic Unit:

We are studying basketball this week and learning about Michael Jordan. Mrs. Jennifer Stevens who works at our school, played basketball for Texas Tech and came to discuss her career in this awesome sport. We read many books and learned about the uniform, rules, player positions and more. We rotated through 4 centers. 

1. Michael Jordan biography book.....You will notice that the book said Michael Jordan was part time owner of the Bobcats. We explained to the students that the Bobcats are actually called the Hornets now! We discussed what it must be like to convert from being a player to an owner and how much leadership Michael displays. 
2. Basketball Bread making....Take biscuit dough and roll it into a ball. Roll it in cinnamon and sugar. Bake in the toaster and enjoy! This was a hit! Please use the recipe that we sent home and make this at home. So yummy!
3. Design your own basketball jersey!
4. Base ten jersey number....we introduced base ten blocks and discussed the tens place and ones place. Using tens and ones, students had to make their own jersey number.

Reader's Workshop:

This week we are reviewing all beanie baby reading strategies and trying to practice using them! We are reinforcing this by reading in small groups, large groups and one on one. Often times when students come to an unknown word they still want to say "I do not know what that word is!!" We want students to get in the habit of trying to solve the word first using the strategies and then if they still cannot figure it out, they can ask for help. It is always so surprising to them when they can figure it out on their own!

Word sorts are still going well this week. Word sorts work on short vowels, long vowels, blends, digraphs and more. Each week we take two days to get through all the reading groups and we send those books home. Then it takes two more days to get through word sort groups. Your child is receiving small group and one on one instruction in both reading groups and word sorts groups. You will see their first word sort in their word study binder behind the "Extra Work" tab.

Word study words this week are:
up
on
over
at
of
*Of is tricky and it sounds like it would be spelled ov. But that f is making a tricky sound in the word of!

Math:

This was the first week where we started studying geometry! This week we worked on: describing, comparing and naming 2-D shapes and decomposing shapes in different ways. We started with the basic shapes like: hexagon, square, triangle, trapezoid, circle etc. We studied the characteristics that these shapes have and looked at similarities and differences. We also learned how these shapes can fit together to make a new shape. We did not learn any new math games this week. We did complete geometry "quilts" and those went home today. Students were given a blank shape and then asked to fill in that blank shape with many different pattern blocks. Everyone had a different combination which was neat to see! Then students had to count how many of each shape they used and total up all the shapes together. We snuck a little more addition in there! 

Questions we were asking this week for assessment were:

What features of shapes do students notice?
What shape names do students know?
Can students identify shapes in their environment?

Announcements:

1. Next week we will be studying football! 
2. November 26th-28th there will be NO SCHOOL. 
3. We have our first trip to the Laurel's Nursing home December 3rd 9:40-12:00 if you want to join us. Mark your calendars!
4. Sign up genius for next week here: www.SignUpGenius.com/go/10C0C4FA5A82BA4FF2-novembr 
5. Scholastic orders must be placed online this year! Order those books in time for the holidays! :) Class code is: MG2XP

Hugs, 
Mrs. Schultz

No comments:

Post a Comment