Thursday, December 12, 2013

Classroom Summary for December 9 - 13

Miss Varrell's dream class....
Oh no! What happened?
Here's what we did this week...

In Miss Varrell's Fundations group we worked with the syllable type known as the V-C-E exception. That means that the syllable types we worked with have the look of a v-c-e syllable but vowel sound is short, not long. Here are some words that follow the V-C-E exception:

                                    give                                        active      

We also learned that the spelling i-v-e can be a glued sound or a suffix. Using the words above, can you tell which way i-v-e is being used? If you're not sure, here's a hint: suffixes are endings to words and are always attached to a base word. Therefore, if you take away a suffix, you should be left with a base word. Test out your theory on the words above by covering over what you think might be the suffix i-v-e (use your finger or a piece of paper) to see if you are left with a base word. Did you figure it out?

In Miss Varrell's reading group we continued to work on learning about verbs, adverbs and linking verbs. Miss Varrell listened to children read individually while we practiced applying our verb knowledge to our independent work.







In Writing Workshop this week we continued to learn about the revising in the writing process. We worked on our weather scripts and made sure that the dialog in our scripts made sense and got the audience's attention when we were speaking. We practiced speaking our lines so that when we worked with Miss Fallon on Friday for our enrichment activity we were prepared!

In math this week we finished our enVision topic on mental subtraction strategies. We now know that when we subtract in our heads sometimes it is easier to visualize a hundred chart and to work backwards by tens and then ones, but we also learned that we can turn a subtraction problem in to a missing addend addition problem and count up from the smaller number to the larger number as well. There are so many different strategies to use that some of us need to pick one that works well for us and stick with it rather than switching our strategies every time we have a problem. And for others of us, we can switch up strategies depending on which one is the most efficient for solving the problem we have at the time. With practice, we will develop the strategies work best for us.

In science we continued to work with and learn about the three main types of clouds: stratus, cumulus and cirrus. We began working in a mini book about clouds that we are illustrating to match the scientific information that we are learning. Knowing about clouds helps us to forecast the weather even if we don't have access to a weather report!


In the LTC this week Mrs. D'Elia taught us about computer programming. We used Tynker on Symbaloo (see pineglen.info) and practiced programming with a program called Puppy Playground. We loved the challenge!




Weekend Challenge Activity: Challenge yourself to think about how you can help your family around the house this weekend. Make a list. Once you've got your list, show it to your parents and offer your help! As you complete an activity, cross it off on your list. Post your list on the fridge where everyone can see it. Be proud of your accomplishments and feel good about helping your family at this busy time of year. :)

F.Y.I.

  • On Friday we discussed our upcoming Secret Santa activity which will begin on Monday, December 16. It is very important that Moms and Dads read the Secret Santa activity letter that was sent home on Friday. In it, there is an explanation for how to 'play', who your child is writing/giving to, and what is expected next week for homework. Please take note that the culminating project (i.e. gift) is not be purchased, although ingredients and/or supplies may need to be depending on your child's choice of activity. The gift should be hand-crafted by your child and then wrapped to disguise the contents and brought to school on Friday, labeled ''To __   From Secret Santa." If for some reason you do not find the Secret Santa letter in your child's backpack on Friday afternoon, please contact me immediately so I can resend it to you. :)



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