CONGRATS, IXL Champs!
Curriculum Update and Reminders:
THANKSGIVING FOOD DRIVE: Next week is our big school-wide Thanksgiving Food Drive! Service Council will collect canned and boxed foods from our classrooms daily ! We are looking for and need a big community response! Also, loose change will be collected in the cafe all week to purchase gift cards for turkeys! Search your cupboards or go shop for canned vegetables, bags or boxes of stuffing, and other holiday favorites.
Remember, there will be NO SCHOOL for students this coming Tuesday, November 8th. Please have your Yellow Jacket use this time to rehearse his/her lines for our class Thanksgiving play, which will be Monday, November 14th at 9:00 a.m. I am asking students to know their lines by Thursday next week, as Friday will be the last day we have to rehearse before the big show! THANK YOU SO MUCH to those parents who have jumped right in to volunteer to make this a very special time for all! The Yellow Jackets are very excited to perform for you! It should last about an hour, including refreshments which will be served afterward.
The Yellow Jackets have been very busy and continue to impress me with their learning! October was a fun month, with lots of hands-on experiences. We began with Red Ribbon Week:
We wrote stories about our Monsters. These beastly creatures apparently loved fashion, sports, the playground, video games, and driving the car around the neighborhood! Upon completing these narratives, we had a small celebration by making paper plate Monster faces, having an Author's chair, and even enjoyed Monster-shaped lollipops:
Math has been ALL about two-digit subtraction...regrouping, no regrouping, and more regrouping! We built numbers to subtract with partners using decks of cards. We built subtraction problems by using a spinner to get our numbers! And we rolled the dice to make number problems as well. The class is really beginning to make fewer careless mistakes when solving these problems! I do ask that you encourage your Yellow Jacket to practice the basic Math facts daily though. There is still a lot of counting on fingers, as well as longer delays in recalling some of the higher number facts. Counting back as a subtraction strategy is tricky for some still at this point, and causes a bit of a delay. Any additional practice you could assist them with is appreciated. Even a few minutes in the car, just asking them to count backwards from 19 to13, as one example, will help in becoming more efficient. We count up and count back to reach a desired number.
This week we begin to tell time to the nearest 5 minutes. Students will practice this skill using a Judy clock. We will also play some Time games!
Our Reading focus has been on story elements, such as naming the characters, setting, problem, solution within the text. Students are doing a nice job of initiating AR tests when finished with their books. Please remind your Yellow Jacket to use the 5-Finger Rule when selecting their "just-right" book. Remember, a copy of this rule is in their binders.
Finally, in Social Studies we continue to learn about many of Georgia's first people. The class has learned about James Oglethorpe and his contributions to the founding of the Georgia colony. They created a class book about him! They have also learned about Oglethorpe's friend, Tomochichi, the leader of the Yamacraw Creek people. Be sure to ask them about it. They are currently creating a class book about him as well. Additionally, they know a woman named Mary Musgrove ran a trading post and served as an interpreter for Oglethorpe and Tomochichi, but will learn more about her this week!
Have a wonderful weekend. Remember to set your clocks back one hour and enjoy an extra hour of sleep! I know I will!
