McDonald's News

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Third Grade -

My third grade students will take the Cognitive Abilities test this week on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday mornings. Please make sure your child is in bed by 8:00 p.m. and eats a healthy breakfast each morning! 

 In Language Arts we will read a chapter book title Eruption. This is a nonfiction book through which we will make text connections to Earthquake in the Early Morning. The students are doing a great job making connections between various pieces of literature. As we continue to learn about nouns in our writing, we will use a program called Inspiration to create a web of common and proper nouns on our laptops. 

 In Math we will be working on multiplication. We will learn about repeated addition and how it relates to multiplication. We will also use manipulatives and arrays (multiplication pictures) to represent multiplication facts. The students will begin multiplying by 2's and 3's. They will use 'skip counting' to solve these multiplication facts. Please encourage your child to practice these facts at home. Begin with the 2's and review each evening. The children will begin to commit these facts to memory through daily repetition and review. Thank you for your support!

Second Grade-

In Math we will be creating and reading pictographs. We will use The Graph Club software on our laptops to make some graphs of our own. We will also review the many skills we have learned this nine weeks in preparation for our unit assessment.                                                                                                

Our vowel pattern of the week is the sound of 'ai' as in the word train. We will make a 'train' word slide as we read words with this vowel pattern. We will read Pony Rides and use sentence strips to sequence the parts of our story.

First Grade-

My first grade students will take the Cognitive Abilities test this week on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday mornings. Please make sure your child is in bed by 8:00 p.m. and eats a healthy breakfast each morning! 

We will continue learning about the value of numbers to 30. We will work with base 10 manipulatives to build tens and ones on our place value mats.

In Reading we will review the sound of short 'u' and read a great story titled Jump Up, Pup. It will be fun to play the riddle game as we search for short u words within the story.

 

Our News!

 
Third Grade -

Our vowel pattern of the week is the sound of long 'i' as in the word 'drive'. I am happy to see many of my third grade students using the vowel patterns as they decode new words during guided reading. They are becoming "word detectives". We will continue to discuss the main idea of a reading passage as we read both fiction and nonfiction books. The children are engaged and eager to share during our guided reading each day!

In Math we will use the Smart Board to complete several activities related to equivalent equations. The students are becoming experts in the use of  this wonderful technology!

Second Grade - 

In Math we are working with money. We will use the Touch Math strategy to add coins and bills. The children are also using a 'cash box'  as they shop for items in our play store. Please encourage your child to identify real coins and bills at home and to add this money with your help!

Our vowel pattern of the week is the sound of long 'a' as in the word 'cake'. We will use the Smart Board to complete an activity with words ending in 'magic silent e'. We will also read a story titled My Friend John as the children compare and contrast the character to themselves.

First Grade-

We will continue with the sound of short 'u' as we build three letter words in our 'pup' book and our 'hut' word slide. We will read a fun book about the circus and sequence the events of the story.

In Math we will continue learning about coins and their values. We will sort and add coins in an engaging activity on the Smart Board. Please work with your child in counting by 5's to 50. This will help them as they add coins and learn to tell time.

Weekly News!

First Grade-

In Math we will begin our unit on money. The students will make a piggy bank and large replicas of a penny, nickel, dime and quarter using the Touch Math program for counting coins. This is a great strategy to use as children learn to count money. It emphasizes counting by 5's, so please continue to practice skip counting by 5's to 100 with your children at home or as you are driving around town!         

In Reading we will continue working with our sight words and also the sound of short 'o' in the middle of three letter words. The students will have fun reading short 'o' words as they write them on 'popcorn' and toss them in the bag. We will also read a book titled Jobs and use highlighting tape to find more short 'o' words.

 

Second Grade-

In Reading we will  create a 'story house' to help us in sequencing the events of the stories we read during guided reading. We will  be reviewing all of the short vowel sounds this week in our spelling unit.
  In math we will begin adding two digit numbers. We will use base 10 manipulatives to practice adding larger numbers. Please practice counting by 5's with your child as you are driving in your car or while you are preparing dinner!

Third Grade-
We are excited to begin a new book this week in our book club! We will be reading Earthquake in the Early Morning as we enjoy another adventure with Jack and Annie. ! Our vowel pattern this week is short 'i'. I am very proud of the way the children are studying their spelling words each week!
In math we will begin subtracting  three and four digit numbers using regrouping. The students will use base 10 models and mats to find a new way to solve subtraction of larger numbers.

Class News!

First Grade - In Math we will use counters and other manipulatives as we work with subtraction of some basic facts. We solve these facts through the use of word problems and highlighting key words and information as we read. Our vowel pattern this week is the sound of short 'o' as in the word octopus. We will build and sort a variety of three letter words containing the short 'o' sound. We will also continue to work with our sight words as we build a sight word ladder on our classroom Smartboard.

Second Grade-
  Our vowel pattern of the week is the sound of short 'u' as in 'pup'. We will make a 'bug' word book of many short 'o' words. We will read Alligator Race and use sentence strips to sequence the events of our story.
  The students completed a summative assessment on our place value and number sense unit in Math. We are now working on using tens to add two digit numbers. We will also be reviewing our addition facts and the strategies we use to solve them.

Third Grade-  We will read the final two chapters in Twister on Tuesday. This was a great book to use as we learned to visualize while reading this story. When we 'make a picture in our heads', it is easier for us to remember what we are reading. We will complete this chapter book with a special activity on Thursday! Ask your child about this on Thursday after school!
In Math we  will  learn how to estimate to the nearest tens, hundreds, and thousands. The children have enjoyed using our place value dice as we work with four and five digit numbers.

Happy Labor Day!

 
I hope my students and their families are enjoying this long weekend as our nation celebrates Labor Day on Monday!

Third Grade-
  The students did a great job skip counting by 2's. We are now learning to count by 3's to 30. This skill will prepare us to learn our multiplication facts.  Please encourage your child to practice this at home. As we begin learning about estimation, we will continue to practice reading numbers in the ten thousands. We also read a great story titled A Place for Zero. The children enjoyed this book as they learned the importance of zero in place value.
  In Language Arts we read a story titled Carla's Corner. It was about a girl who wanted a room of her own. We wrote a response to literature as we described a special room we'd like to have. Our vowel pattern of the week is the sound of short e. We completed a word ladder as we manipulated letter tiles to build words with different vowel patterns.

Second Grade-
 We will continue to work with short vowel patterns as we read and spell words containing the sound of
short 'o' . The children will be making a 'clock' book of short 'o' words. As we read our various guided reading books, we discuss the story elements, such as characters, setting, problem, and solution within a fiction reading passage. Our next book we'll read is The Gingerbread Man. We can't wait!
  In Math we will continue to work on number sense as we also move onto addition of two digit numbers. We will use base 10 models to trade ones for tens.

First Grade-
 We are working on the addition facts through the sum of 10. We will continue to practice counting by fives's and using manipulatives to better understand the value of numbers.
 Our vowel pattern is the sound of short 'i' in three letter words.  We will make an inchworm word slide of short 'i' words. As we read our leveled readers, we are searching for vocabulary words and sight words within our stories.