Week of November 28 - December 2

Dear Parents,

Happy Thanksgiving from our farm to yours! We had a wonderful time last week creating some art work. I hope they brighten your home this holiday season...

Thank you to everyone who participated in our Boats That Float presentation last Wednesday. Each boat was so unique and ... floated! Very cool. Special thanks to Kinder and Jeff Butler for bringing hot chocolate and treats for the kids.  Truly appreciated!  Expect to see another family project after winter break. 

This week, we’re jumping back into our academics.  We finished reading Max and have started Sam and Al. I continue to be in awe with how the scholars are approaching their reading. Their enthusiasm to learn something new keeps my energy level as high as a 5-year old! 

Coupled with our reading, we will be doing a lot of rhyming activities and word decoding this week. Please continue to find opportunities at home to reinforce these concepts (“I spy” car games, grocery store treasure hunts, laundry matching, etc.). 

In math, we are going to start picking apart numbers to add and subtract them. We again will take the concept of “seeing” numbers in a different way... a hand’s on approach.  Also, the scholars are having a great time tackling each page in their workbooks. Please keep an eye out for the “note home” each time we start a new chapter. This page, directly from our workbooks, gives you an idea what we will be learning.  You can also refer weekly to the right column on our blog for a brief explanation.  Right now, we are completing one chapter every 2-weeks. We end each chapter with a “test” and I am thrilled with how well everyone is doing! I hope you have enjoyed seeing the results! 

In keeping with the idea I had a few weeks ago to give you some reading suggestions, here is a new list of some great stories to share with your scholars:

The Amazing Bone, William Steig

Blueberries by Sal, Robert McCloskey

The Man Who Walked Between the Towers, Mordicai Gerstein

Nobody Rides the Unicorn, Adrian Mitchell

Old Turtle, Douglas Wood

One Fine Day, Nonny Hogrogian

Raising Dragons, Jerdine Nolen

Strega Nona, Tomie de Paola

More to come... just in time for the holidays!

In Science, we will continue to explore the idea of making observations in order to see the world in a different way. Expect to see homework concerning this topic for the next few weeks.

As Always...

If you have any questions, comments, or concerns please feel free to email me, stop by the classroom, talk to Ms. Diane, or leave a comment on our blog.  Please become a “follower” of our blog and “like” our school’s Facebook page, if you haven’t already done so.

Have a terrific week!

Mrs. Stuhr

Boat that Floats Presentation (Optional)

Week of November 14 - 18

Dear Parents,

Well, the weather has definitely changed and our classroom is buzzing with Fall activities... 

Last week we donned our scientists’ caps and starting making observations about the world around us. We will continue these observations this week  and even go into the science lab for a demonstration on sinking and floating (and making observations accordingly). 

Starting on Monday we will begin reading Max, our first phonics reader in the short vowel series.  We are going to pay attention to the rhymes and patterns to help us form words. We will also be doing exercises with our new sight words.  We will be doing a lot of “looking for clues” in our reading.  This involves looking at pictures to help us figure out the text.  This is a very important exercise to work on at home as well during your nightly reading time. Some fantastic books with quality pictures are

Corduroy by Don Freeman, Giraffes Can’t Dance by Giles Andreae, The Little House by Virginia Lee Burton, Kitten’s First Full Moon by Kevin Henkes, Joseph Had a Little Overcoat by Simms Taback, Snow by Uri Shulevitz

(such an incredibly shoooort list (for now). There are so many wonderful books out there! I will add more and more and more as the school year continues...)

This week, we will finish reviewing our alphabet letters. We will continue to work daily with their sounds to build even bigger words!  Please continue to work with your scholar to stay fresh on the letters, how to write them, and what sound(s) each make.

Also throughout this week we will continue to look at “patterns” in our math workbooks. By midweek, we will go onto “movement” and learn how to follow directions with left and right.

As Always...

If you have any questions, comments, or concerns please feel free to email me, stop by the classroom, talk to Ms. Diane, or leave a comment on our blog.  Please become a “follower” of our blog and “like” our school’s Facebook page, if you haven’t already done so.

Have a terrific week!

Mrs. Stuhr

Week of November 7 - 11

Dear Parents,

Last week was a lot of fun! Thanks for coming to our Costume Parade and for your help making our class party on Monday a success. It’s always fun to use our imagination and play with the ideas of Halloween... my hat’s off to the students for their bravery with all our games. 

Speaking of bravery, the scholars did an outstanding job this week listening to sounds and building words.  We will continue to play our phonics games in class (see last week’s post) to prepare us for reading.

This week’s spelling list has FOUR words. I’m adding three new sight words and one word we’re learning in Max (see below). Also, we’re are almost done reviewing our alphabet letters. This week we’ll be doing P, Q, R, S, T... yes, one letter per day!  

Drum roll please... This week marks our first leap into beginning reading! We are starting a phonics series that has been around since the 1970’s. It’s a great tool to help the scholars hear sounds, implement sight words, and build rhyming words.  Our first book is Max, from Series A (short vowel sounds). Working with a partner, we will read this book throughout the week with the goal of learning to read the whole thing by ourselves. 

We are beginning Chapter 2 in our math workbook. My original thought was to do a chapter per week, but I think we’ll go slower and do a chapter every two weeks (and pick up the pace in the last half of the year). In terms of our number recognition, we’ve started to explore the concept of counting by two’s and putting things in pairs.

Thanksgiving Project (OPTIONAL)

In this week’s homework packet is the project assignment for the month of November. It is due on Wednesday, November 23rd (the day before Thanksgiving vacation).  It’s a family project that I hope you’ll have fun completing. 

To incorporate physical properties of matter into Thanksgiving (because, really, what holiday of giving thanks would be complete without it?), we are going to build the Nina, the Pinta, or the Santa Maria!  In class, we are going to learn about how boats float (i.e. the bigger the boat, the more it holds). Your assignment is to build a boat that 1) holds three Thanksgiving objects of your choice and 2) floats!  See the assignment for more information (like the “optional” clause!) 

As Always...

If you have any questions, comments, or concerns please feel free to email me, stop by the classroom, talk to Ms. Diane, or leave a comment on our blog.  Please become a “follower” of our blog and “like” our school’s Facebook page, if you haven’t already done so.

Have a terrific week!

Mrs. Stuhr

Week of October 31 - November 4

Dear Parents,

Happy Halloween! Our Costume Parade in on Monday at 10:00 a.m. If you drop your child off around 8:00 a.m., we suggest he/she comes in regular clothes. The kids will have a chance to change before the parade. Please do pack, though, a change of clothes for your child (especially if you think he/she might get uncomfortable in a costume for the whole day).  Our party is at 1:30 p.m., but if you’d like to stay with us after the parade, we’ll be doing Halloween activities for the remainder of the day. Come celebrate with us!

On Tuesday, with my little glimmer of hope that the Halloween buzz has worn off, we will jump into an exploration of sounds and patterns. This week, we are going to begin our lessons on Phonemic Awareness (i.e. hearing and manipulating different sounds in words).  We will spend Tuesday-Friday playing games that give the scholars an opportunity to hear and play with words as sounds and groups. For example, we will solve rhyming riddles like this:

“You need me to play baseball. I rhyme with hat. What am I? BAT.”

We will learn songs that isolate sounds, like this:

“Twinkle, twinkle little word. What’s the new word to be heard? If I take off the first sound, what new word will now be found? Take the /F/ right off of FARM. Now the new word sounds like __________ (ARM).”

And, we will learn to blend sounds to make words by playing games like Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes, like this:

The word BUG would be /b/ (head), /u/ (shoulders), /g/ (knees). 

These activities will lead us into next week when we start to read decodable books during class. Decodable books are comprised of words that are easily sounded out (e.g. “Bill has a big ham.”). I’ll write more about it next week and explain what we’ll be doing. In the meantime, keep reading and pointing out words in books to your scholar... Continue to play rhyming games in the car or while you wait in line at the grocery store... Have fun exploring sounds and building words!

This week we will also be starting Chapter 2 in our math workbook: Patterns and Movement. We will build patterns with Legos and picture cards and look for patterns we see around our school. In terms of “movement,” we will be discussing “right” and “left” and as we make observations about the world around us.

P.S. The scholars are doing a FANTASTIC job studying the sight words! In two weeks, we will be adding one more word to the Friday spelling test, a decodable word from our week’s reading.  I hope my study cards are useful. If you’d like any help or suggestions on how to study and/or memorize the words, please slip me an email or stop by the classroom. 

As Always...

If you have any questions, comments, or concerns please feel free to email me, stop by the classroom, talk to Ms. Diane, or leave a comment on our blog.  Please become a “follower” of our blog and “like” our school’s Facebook page, if you haven’t already done so.

Have a terrific week!

Mrs. Stuhr

Book Worm Bag

Parents,

I still have not received all the Book Worm Bags back from two weekends ago, so unfortunately I cannot distribute the bags to the scholars this weekend.  If you have a bag out, please return on Monday. I'll send home reminder notes next week...

In the meantime, please check your child's backpack for this weekend's School-Home Links worksheet. Along with reading this weekend, this is a fun activity for you to do together.

(or print here and complete)

Of course, the Book Worm Bag and the Links worksheet are optional... But they are an awesome way to stay fresh and focused for school.

I hope you are enjoying the books that are coming home. I think they are a great collection of some early reading material. The Links worksheets follow how a child learns to read. We are now entering the "Learning to Track Print" phase of the worksheets. In other words, learning to read from left to right and recognizing words.

Have a great weekend. I'll update our blog shortly with next week's activities.

Sincerely,
Mrs. Stuhr

Week of October 24-28

Dear Parents,

What a wonderful first week learning our sight words! The students put in such a lovely effort to their classwork, and I can assume at home as well, to learn the three words. It was very evident on their spelling tests. I was very pleased... and so were they!

Along with our phonics excitement, we also had a great week exploring the numbers 8, 9, and 10. We talked about those numbers in terms of what they “feel” like and we solved math problems - adding and subtracting our way to some fun and interesting results.

This week we will be adding three new words to our “high frequency word” list and beginning our first math workbook.  Our week looks like this:

1.  Phonics 

• review letters K and L (practice our penmanship and word building skills)
• learn about and memorize spelling for HE, A, and I (spelling practice test on Wednesday and test on Friday)

2.  Math

• begin Harcourt Math workbook, Chapter 1: Sorting and Classifying (sorting objects that are alike in some way)

3.  Science

• learn how to describe an object by the material it is made out of and their physical properties 

Halloween Party

Our Halloween Party in on Monday, October 31st. While our party doesn’t officially start until 1:30 pm, here is the schedule for the afternoon’s festivities:

10:00 School-wide Costume Parade*

12:00 Lunch

12:45 Story and Art Project

Our Party Begins!!!

1:30 Relay Games

2:00 Tactile Story

2:30 Decorate Halloween Cookies

*Parents are welcome to stay with us after the parade and through lunch. If anyone would like to bring special treats, etc. during lunch time, feel free. Our party begins at 1:30 after the kids have had a chance to digest their food and rest a little (with a story and an art project).

Thank you for those of you who signed up to help during the party:

Game Helpers (1:30-2:30)

Lisa Stacey

Danielle Biel

Bringing Edible Decorations for our Cookies

Ji Sun Stetson

Christine Coles

Danielle Tew

Lisa Stacey

Party Volunteers (1:30-3:00)

Heidi Downen

Troy Stacey

If you have the afternoon off work, please join us... we’re going to have a spook-tacular time!

As Always...

If you have any questions, comments, or concerns please feel free to email me, stop by the classroom, talk to Ms. Diane, or leave a comment on our blog.  Please become a “follower” of our blog and “like” our school’s Facebook page, if you haven’t already done so.

Have a terrific week!

Mrs. Stuhr

*** Homework is due Friday, October 28th (not 27th)