It's hard to believe that we have reached the end of September and that October will be here next week! We have finished most of our apple projects and will be starting our unit on mammals and other zoo animals soon in preparation for our field trip to the zoo on October 12th. More info about this trip will be going home the day before the trip. Please don’t forget to send the $5 to cover the cost of the trip this week, for both students and chaperones.
As always, we have been working very hard in Room 115. The children are working on a class book, Apples Up on Top and will be starting another one, Room 115 Likes Reading next week. All of our class books have started circulating to your homes. Make sure to have your child read the book with you before you return them the next day. Please try to return them the next day so someone else can bring them home to share!
The children are finishing up their September writing journals and will bring these home next week. They wrote their words in their best guess spelling. We help them by saying the words with them and accept the letters they hear. You will be able to see tremendous growth as the year progresses. I would encourage you to keep their September journals so you can compare them to their journals at the end of the year! The students have finished their Brown Bear innovations and will bring them home as soon as they read them to the class. Make sure to save these and all the individual books they take home. These books are great for them to read and review often. The small alphabet books they have been working on in class can also be kept and reviewed often.
We started learning about cross-section diagrams today. We looked at pictures of many different kinds of fruits and what they look like after they have been cut in half. The students have drawn pictures of whole apples and what they look like cut in half and will be labeling the parts next week. I would like to assign some OPTIONAL homework for this weekend and coming week. The next time you are at the grocery store, I would encourage you to buy some pieces of fruit that you can cut in half at home. Ask your child to make observations of what they see and maybe even encourage them to draw and label the different parts! The best part is sampling all the different fruits at the end! If students do any drawing or labeling, I would love to see them!
I will be sending home some number writing homework very soon. Students should complete them at home with pencils and then return them the next day. Hopefully the extra practice will help students learn their numbers better! They aren’t always easy for those 5 and 6 year old hands! I would also recommend students practicing letter and number formation in other ways too. They can write letters and numbers in sand, salt, rice, and even shaving cream!
We went to the library on Wednesday. Students may keep the books for two weeks. The due date is Wednesday, October 11th. We had a special visitor on Thursday. Dr. Shoudt is one of our guidance counselors. He did a lesson on our first life skill and will continue coming in to do lessons during the next few weeks. We are working on the skill: When someone says your name, stop, look, and say “yes.”
We will start having parent volunteers come into the classroom to help from 9:45-10:20am this week with our art projects. I sent a volunteer calendar home to parents who emailed that they were interested in helping. I will send an email towards the end of the month asking for volunteers for the month of November. You can respond with the days and how often you are interested in helping. Volunteers just need to check in at the office to get a badge and then you can come down to the classroom.
I hope you all have a great weekend!
Melanie Duncan
PS… It would be tremendously helpful if you could help your child practice putting on sweatshirts/jackets, turning them right-side out, and zipping them. We don’t mind helping them but would like them to become more independent as the year goes on. Any help you can give would be greatly appreciated, especially now that the weather will be getting cooler. Thanks!
Congratulations on your 10th year as a class teacher at Room 115!
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