Mrs. Spirakus’ Class
November Newsletter #1 Important Dates November 11- Veteran’s Day- No School November 27, 28, 29 - No School December 2 -Book Fair Begins News Ms. Perugini has been given a wonderful opportunity to teach the technology class for the school. This is great news for her because she is currently in school to study computer science. Unfortunately, this leaves us without an assistant until a new one is hired. Mrs. Agee has made many sign ups for the quarter! There are many ways to be involved in your child’s education this quarter. If you have not signed up for a conference or can not find a time that works for you, please e-mail me so that we can schedule a time to discuss your child’s progress. This Quarter’s Driving Question: How can we create a business? Yep, you read that right. We’re creating businesses! No need to shop for the holidays, we’ll have all you need right here! (if you like to give gifts made by 7 year olds of course). Reading For the next two weeks we will focus on characters again. We are talking about character traits and how characters change in the story. Students will also work on retelling stories using transition words to help organize their thinking (first, next, then, last). Writing In writing we are learning how to write “how-to” books. So far we have worked together on a book about washing your hands. Currently students are working on creating a list of topics they’re experts on. They will create their own book to teach the class how to do something. Math In math we are working hard on representing two digit numbers. We have studied what each digit in a two digit number represents and have played some fun games that help us identify the number of tens and ones in a given amount quickly. We are using ten frames and pop cubes to help us organize our whole amount into groups of tens and ones. Social Studies We are focusing on science right now, but continue to practice being good citizens in our classroom. Soon, the students will apply for new jobs in our classroom! Science Science has been a lot of fun so far. We are on our force and motion unit. So far, we have learned how to balance objects using counter weights. We also read a book about Isaac Newton’s 3 Laws of Motion. Next, we will study how things rotate.
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Mrs. Spirakus’ Class
September Newsletter #1 Classroom Wish List: **Please continue to send in your recycling!** Hanging file folders Clear plastic page protectors Fun stickers for good work Save the Date! We have decided to have a Quarter 1 culmination on September 26th from 2:00 pm to 2:45 pm. Please join us to view our model communities and to see all of our hard work from throughout the quarter. More information to follow.
This Quarter’s Driving Question: How can citizens help each other achieve our hopes and dreams? We have been learning about different famous people through read alouds during our snack time. We have talked about how they achieved their hopes and dreams. Reading For the next two weeks we will practice retelling a story. We have been using our hand to practice! We call it a “five finger retell.” Writing We are learning how to write personal narratives. Students are learning how to zoom in on one small moment. We call this writing about a “seed” instead of a watermelon. A watermelon story would be, “My beach trip.” A seed story would be, “Finding a crab at the beach.” Math We have finished our unit on building tens and ones. Next, we will be learning different strategies for addition and subtraction. We will learn words such as:
Social Studies We have been reading books about famous people. I am integrating social studies into this by talking about how communities have changed over time. We discuss how people’s lives were different in the past, and how things have changed. For example, we learned that Wilma Rudolph was not able to attend school as a young child because she was wheelchair bound. We talked about how wonderful it is to live in a time where our schools can welcome all people! Science We have started our science unit on the earth, moon, and sun. We have started by discussing why we have day/night, and learned about earth’s orbit. Next, we will learn about the phases of the moon! Mrs. Spirakus’ Class
August Newsletter #1 In these newsletters, you will find out what we are learning in the next two weeks. You will also find a list of important information, dates and a wish list of more immediate wishes (bigger wish list items can be found on my amazon wish list). Important Reminders:
Wish List:
This Quarter’s Driving Question: How can we help each other achieve our hopes and dreams? This week we will decide what our hopes and dreams are. In our read alouds we will learn about the hopes and dreams of some heroes of the past and present. Reading Our main goal for reading right now is to build up our reading stamina. Students have learned that stamina is being able to do something for a long time without stopping. We have learned how to read a book three ways: Read the pictures, read the words, and retell the story. We have been timing how long the entire class can read without stopping. Our goal is to get to 15 minutes! In the next two weeks, students will be introduced to our “Daily 5” centers. These are literacy centers that allow students to practice writing skills, word patterns, comprehension skills, and reading with a partner. During our Daily 5 time, I will be meeting with reading groups to provide differentiated reading instruction. Writing This quarter we will focus on writing personal narratives. Just like in reading, we have to work on building up our writing stamina as well. In the next two weeks we will make lists of writing topics, learn how to keep adding details to a story, and learn how to tell a story across our hands to ensure that we have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Our grammar focus for the next few weeks will be on parts of speech. We will discuss nouns, adjectives, and verbs. Math Our first math unit is on Data, which has really helped us get to know each other! We have made charts showing how we get home, and our favorite foods. We will continue to learn about collecting data for the next week and a half. After data, we will jump into number sense, where students will begin learning more about place value. They will begin to understand that ten ones is the same as one ten. We will be bundling numbers to show their ones and tens. Social Studies We have spent a lot of time getting to know each other and discussing social skills within the classroom. Students each wrote down all of the things they wanted in their ideal classroom. We narrowed the ideas down into “rules.” We still had A LOT of rules! We then sorted the rules into categories, which lead us to our eventual decision of our main classroom rules. The students enjoyed having a part in creating them. It was interesting to see that when we sorted our rules, we really all agreed on the things we needed to do in order to have a successful year. In the next two weeks we will learn about communities. Our lessons on people who work in the community will help us create the classroom jobs that we need to have a successful classroom community. Science In science, we are discussing the difference between night and day. We are linking this to our social studies lessons by talking about how the night sky looks different depending on what kind of community you live in (urban, rural, suburban). Look for our cool mural that we are going to create to show what we’ve learned! |
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