Happy New Year!

 

Happy New Year!  Here's what's happening in 1-3....

Reading - We began our Non-Fiction unit right after break.  We have learned the 3 types of nonfiction books:  Literary Non-fiction (which is non-fiction written in story form), Biography, and Reference.  We have had fun "scanning" some non-fiction books to look for the TEXT FEATURES the authors have used to help organize the material and draw attention to main parts.  Some of these text features are photographs, captions, bolded words, diagrams, labels,  a glossary, and index and headings.  Each of the kids have "swapped" books in their book bins and are enjoying this new genre.  In Book Bags, look for both a fiction story and a non-fiction story your child is reading and discussing in reading group.

Writing - We are finishing up our Tradition Writing that we began before break.  Our focus now is adding lots of detail.  These finished projects will be displayed in the hallway in a couple of weeks, so I'll include a picture when all the kids are done.  Our next unit will be on letter writing and will begin in February.

Math - We began Unit 4 right after break, which is a lot of measuring!  The kids were put into new Math Workshop groups.  We will continue to expand our knowledge of telling time, counting coins, problem solving and addition and subtraction concepts.  Later in this unit we will begin our +/- timed tests!  More information will come after lesson 4-10.  We are on 4-4 right now.

Science - It's time for science instead of Social Studies!  We began a unit on Light and Sound.  We have some new explorations we will be doing this year for this unit, so I'm excited for this!  We do science on Thursdays and Friday, so knowing that may help initiate a conversation about our school day.

Valentine's Day is fast approaching.  I'll be sending home a class list to help your child complete Valentines for each of his/her classmates.  Our room reps are busy planning a fun party for that afternoon.  It is on a Tuesday, so our party will be 1:15-2:15 and then we will still have gym & music from 2:30-3:30.  

Enjoy some pictures from this week and right before break!....