Room 235 Newsletter
9-13 January 2017
Interactive Read Aloud
Workboard
Writing: responses to stories
Mooses Come Walking
in a cabin in a wood
Bob the Snowman
Snowmen at Night
Cloud Dance
Humor, using stories to make connections with our science units.
Winter stories, animal habitats, weather/seasons, clouds,
revisiting the water cycle (and seeing it from a snowman’s point of
view!), fiction and non-fiction books.
Interactive/Shared Writing, Word Study
Fundations Unit 7: New glued sounds ang, ing, ong, ung, rhyming
and spelling words that have these word parts. Trick words my,
why, by, try. Dictation this week included sounds, words and
sentences.
Math: Digit Game, Shaker Addition
ABC: make, break & write trick words, sight word bingo
Poetry: “Clouds”
Write around the room, browsing boxes, independent reading,
chart reading and buddy reading
Poetry
“Clouds” by Christina G. Rossetti. We enjoyed this poem with its
beautiful metaphor, “white sheep, white sheep on a blue hill”, and
thought about the author’s choice of describing clouds in this
manner. We found words with digraphs and used the word walk to
spell talk and chalk. Poetry and science go well together!
Word study: We reviewed 2-syllable words ending in y that sound
like long e and compared them with 1-syllable words where y
sounds like long i. Friends worked with the trick words and played
a sight word bingo game. We used our poem, Clouds, to review
words with digraphs and to use a new word (walk) to spell other
similar words (talk, chalk).
Science
Math
Review of the water cycle relating to Bob the Snowman and
integrated it with our study of cirrus, stratus and cumulus clouds.
We had an explorations session and used a pan balance to find
objects that weigh the same, worked in small groups to figure out
how to count large numbers of pennies, played Base-10 Blocks
Exchange and learned how to play the Digit Game. We used
relation symbols (< > =) to solve problems and also worked with
comparison number stories using base-10 blocks. We ended the
week learning a new game, Roll and Double and a few friends had
time to learn the Difference Game. They’ll help teach it to others
next week.
Social Studies
We talked about kindness and being fair and connected that with
Martin Luther King’s dream. We felt it’s important to try hard
everyday to be a good person, to treat others fairly and with
kindness, just the way we would want to be treated. The children
demonstrated that this week in welcoming Luma to our
classroom!
Writing Workshop
We made a list of things we know a lot about and could teach
someone in preparation for our informational writing unit and had
the unit’s pre-assessment on Thursday. We looked at fiction and
nonfiction books and discussed how they’re different. Then
friends shared what they know about story writing and
informational writing and what they like to read. Partners got
together to tell their ideas for writing about a topic.
Notes
*Welcome to Luma, a new member of Room 235. We are happy to
have you join us!
* Monday, 1/16, is a holiday in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr.
We’ll see you Tuesday.
*Our winter wonderland of animals is slowing growing by our
lockers…