November 16th-20

Making catapults with Mr. Andy (Josephine's Dad) in science.

We looooovvveee our 8th grade intern Ms. Anna who comes every Friday. 

Story telling time with Ms. Tasia in art. She was telling ancient Native American tales. 

Hello families! Another week has flown by! Please remember that we do not have school next Wednesday, Thursday or Friday for Thanksgiving break. Please also be sure to sign up for an item for our class feast if you can. 

**Several friends do not have their winter change of clothes with socks and underwear. Please do this! Almost everyone has already changed once this year because of something. If you are unsure if you have done this, email me and I will let you know. 

**Please remember our school is NUT FREE! This does not just mean peanut free. We cannot have any type of nut in our classroom/school or any product that contains nuts. We have noticed several lunches and snacks throughout the year that have contained nuts and we really need your help. This includes nutella, which contains hazelnuts. We have to be super careful in our classroom because we have several nut allergies. Please help keep our children safe!

Reading:

This week we started learning about our first site word! We learned the word "my." We do several things to memorize site words. We made a site word "my" book and we traced the word with our finger, 'bumpy' traced the word with a textured paper and wrote the word "my" four times each. We also used it in a sentence and placed it on our word wall. Site words cannot usually be sounded out when reading and writing. You just have to memorize them! We do our best to make the memorizing fun. 

Writing:

We are still working on writing like scientists by drawing, labeling and listing. We are also still working on our capitol letters in our handwriting books. 

Math:

We learned two new math games. We played a game called "plop." Everyone stands in a circle and we choose what to count by (ones, fives, tens) and we choose a plop number. Let's say we wanted to count by ones and our plop number was 6. We would go around in a circle and the first person would say one, then two, three, four, five and then plop and that person would sit down. 

We also learned a game called "war." You play this game with two players. The two players flash their top dot card. The player with the most dots gets to keep the cards. The game is over once one player has all the cards. 

Science:

Josephine's dad came last week and we made bug catapults. This was a blast! We cannot wait to see what this Friday holds. 

Book buddies: We will be attending their play tomorrow and we cannot wait! 

Thematic Centers:

WE finished our snake and ant centers and started our quick Thanksgiving unit. We learned that ants are very helpful! The head ant is called a queen, ants have 6 legs, ants have two antaneas and ants help turn the dirt to keep the plants growing strong. We labeled an ant body and made ants on a log. We will start our turkey/Thanksgiving centers this week and finish up next week.

Enjoy the rest of the week and weekend.

Hugs, 

Mrs. Schultz

November 9th-13th

Tripp and Landon are holding hands singing the Star Spangled Banner for spirit Friday. So sweet!

Hello!

Please remember we will be out for Thanksgiving break November 25th, 26th and 27th.

Please be sure that you are following proper attendance procedures if your child will be out of school. You need to email attendance (attendance@csdspartans.org) and CC your classroom teacher (eschultz@csdspartans.org).


This week we are continuing our study of creepy crawlies. We finished our bat centers and started with snakes. We will begin studying ants next week.

We have two snake centers and two ant centers so that we leave enough time for Thanksgiving and Native American studies before our break. On November 24th we will have our class "feast." This is for kids only but we will be asking for a cornbread mix, items to make homemade butter, green beans and mac and cheese. I will send this sign up genius out next week so be thinking if you would like to bring any of those items in!

Snake Centers:

We learned that snakes do not have legs, they shed their skin, some snakes are harmless and some are poisonous, snakes can't bite food so they have to swallow it whole, snakes have scales and snakes do not have eyelids.

1. We learned about making patterns and we used beads and pipe cleaners to make a patterned snake.
2. We made a tissue paper snake and wrote three facts about snakes.

Math:

We continued to play monster squeeze on our number line which is a class favorite. We also added two new games. We played "I have, Who has." Each player has a handful of cards with numbers. The first player says "I have 16, who has 3?" The person who has 3 says "I have 3, who has 12?" This game is so fun! We also played a pumpkin seed matching game where you match the number of pumpkin seeds to the number. You draw a pumpkin from the "patch" with a number on it and place that many pumpkin seeds on the card. This works on number recognition and one to one correspondence when counting.

Writing:

We are still working on writing like scientists by labeling, observing and listing. We worked on the capitol Z during handwriting and reviewed all the other capitol letters we have learned so far.

Reading:

We are learning another new poem this week! We are highlighting the rhyming words and learning to "read" the poem by looking for patterns within the words and using the rhymes to help us solve the words. We also finished Marvelous Me! Margot was so patient. :) We will begin learning site words next week! We are also starting our next class big book. We are working on a book called "Mrs. Schultz's Class, Mrs Schultz's Class Who Do You See?" This book is a spin off from the book "Brown Bear Brown Bear What Do You See?"

Science:

Last week we learned all about colors. We watched a neat video about primary colors, secondary colors, tints and shades. Each child received all the primary colors, black and white. Before we started mixing we made predictions about what would happen if we mixed certain colors together. After we made our predictions, everyone started mixing! We sent these papers home because some of the colors that were made were too cool. Ask your chid how he/she made certain colors. The class favorite was GOLD.

Hugs,
Mrs. Schultz

November 2nd-6th

Margot gets a kiss from her twin brother during indoor recess. ;)

We had an amazing time at the parade of fiction!

Landon leads us in a few stretches.

We were supposed to be cleaning up from lunch but stopped for a selfie!

Happy November!

A few reminders and announcements:

1. Please send in a warmer weather change of clothes.
2. Please send in a two pocket folder for our writer's workshop books.
3. Please send your child to school with a jacket or sweater as it is starting to get chilly.
4. No school November 11th, 25th, 26th or 27th.

Thematic Centers:

This week we are studying bats to continue on with our creepy crawlies unit. We learned that bats fly, they are nocturnal, they eat fruit and insects depending on what type of bat they are, they have two wings and two eyes and they use their sight and smell to find food. We rotated through 4 centers.

1. Put together the bat puzzle and have an adult read the facts on the puzzle pieces.
2. Complete the -at words book and illustrate.
3. Complete your torn paper bat (these are hanging here).
4. Look through the bat fact cards, illustrate a bat and write something you learned about bats.

Reading:

This week we have been looking at words that end in "-at" like bat, mat, fat, cat, hat etc. We learned that many words can have the same endings. We have stamped these words and made them out of play dough. We also worked on our brand new class ipad to practice writing our letters! We played write it quick with letters, sounds and words, made another class big book and worked on our handwriting books. We learned a new poem called 5 Little Bats and we glued that into our daybook. We also completed a bat labeling activity to tie into our writing unit this month.

Writing:

This months theme is to work on observing, labeling and listing like scientists in our writing!

Math:

This week we practiced writing numbers 11-30 on our whiteboards. We also learned a new game called "Monster Squeeze." We introduced the number line this week with numbers 0-30 as we played this game. Mrs. Schultz thinks of a number and tells the class what two numbers it is between. The class starts guessing numbers and the two "monsters" (which are classmates) move in closer and closer as everyone guesses until the number is squeezed and told! We also practiced writing our numbers by filling out the November calendar. We completed spooky counting which is a multi step process of counting objects, recognizing the number, cutting that number out and gluing it in the appropriate spot. We kept these here at school because everyone did such a great job and we wanted to hang them up!

Science:

If someone can sign up for sci fri this week we would love it!! :) Our flying ghost experiment was a real hit last week. Please send pictures if you repeat this awesome experiment at home!

Have a happy week and weekend,
Mrs. Schultz