The Next Two Weeks

During the next two weeks while I am absent from the classroom, Heather LaFantano will be my substitute.  Heather is currently working as a paraprofessional on the Endeavor team and has experience in first grade.  Heather and I have had an opportunity to meet and discuss the learning your child will be doing while I am out of the classroom and she spent today in our classroom getting to know your children and learning about our routines.  She is very excited to have this experience and will be sending a letter home in Friday Folders to let you know more about her.
During the time I am gone the class will continue to learn about "Native Americans Long Ago and Today" during Social Studies.  On Wednesday, December 5th they will take a break from this unit and enjoy a visit from a Chinese scholar named "Nina".  She will be sharing about a day in the life of a child in China, and teaching about Chinese food, geography and art.
Our class will continue to focus on characters and learning about strategies good readers use to get to know characters in their books during Readers Workshop.  Some of these strategies are:  thinking about how the character feels and asking questions like "Would I feel the same way?", noticing changes in characters' feelings, imagining what characters are thinking, looking closely at pictures and words in books to think about how a character feels, paying attention to what characters say to learn more about them, sharing what we know about characters with partner,s and re-reading to get to know characters better.  Mrs. Cavanaugh, our literacy coordinator, will be in periodically to provide support during Readers Workshop. 
Our class will finish up our procedure writing unit during this time by choosing a favorite "How To" book we've written to edit and revise and publish.  They will be using their learning from our mini-lessons and a "How To" book template to create a published copy of their favorite book. They willl use a "How To Book Checklist" to help them with this process.  The checklist will include things like:  I have taught my reader everything I need to in each step, each step makes sense, I did my best to spell those hard to spell words, I added end punctuation to my sentences, I checked to make sure my directions work, my words and pictures are clear and precise, and I used specific words.
In Fundations, the class will complete a unit about suffixes.  The focus of this unit will be on the suffix "s" and they will gain practice in separating "base words" from suffixes.
Our math unit about computation and place value will continue during this time and wrap up the first week of January.  The class will spend some time creating and solving lobster picture problems, and be playing games to foster stronger computation skills and a deeper understanding of place value.  Mr. Madden, our math coordinator, will be in two days each week to teach some of these lessons.
Homework will continue to be assigned up until the Holiday Break.  There will be no homework during the holiday break.
A huge thank you to all of you who have signed up to bring my family a meal during the next couple of weeks.  It will be so helpful and is so appreciated by my family;  my husband is hugely relieved he will not have to learn how to cook and my kids are hugely relieved they won't have to eat his cooking!
I hope everyone has a happy, healthy holiday!  I look forward to the new year and getting back to work teaching and learning with all of your amazing children:)

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