A Great Start!!!

What a wonderful (and BUSY!) first week we had in school!  It was an exciting week getting to know the children (who I am enjoying immensely), setting up routines, and creating a safe and open environment where the children will grow and learn this school year. 
Here is a summary of what happened in our classroom:
Getting to Know Each Other…
-To build inclusion and practice communication and listening skills, students created T-shirt designs that represented themselves.  Their paper-shirts were divided into sections to include topics such as family, favorite place, favorite food, etc...  Students could share their shirts with the class as others listened and learned about their new classmates.  
-To showcase their birthdays, students designed their own cupcake using construction paper.  Later in the week they put their cupcakes on display in the classroom in timeline-order.  As we did this, we discussed what a timeline is and reviewed the calendar months in order.  (This will serve as a nice introduction to our social studies/history unit coming up soon about timelines!)
-We discussed in detail about our class "Recipe for Success" and the 8 components to be successful.  Students worked with partners as they each focused on one trait from our "recipe" and wrote about what it means to them.  They created a speech bubble, which is now decorating our front door next to their gorgeous photos in their chef hats!  

​In Langauge Arts...
-Students listened to many stories this week.  One in particular,  an Aesop fable, The Lion and The Mouse was used to help students practice visualizing as they read.  As students were read the story, they were asked to make a "mental movie" of various scenes in their minds. Using this story, student discussed a very important life lesson:  No matter if you're big or small, you can make a difference!  
-In addition to fables, students also learned about expository or informational text.  We read a text called "Meet the Artist."  Using this text, students answered various comprehension questions and "marked up the text" using highlighting strategies to find textual evidence.  

In math...
-Using our Stepping Stones curriculum, students started to learn about place value, specifically tens and ones.  They also practiced writing numerals and number names.  They are still working on adding in the hyphen when need in number names.  Extending their knowledge of place value, students compared two-digit numbers and even order numbers from greatest to least or least to greatest.  To end the week, student leaned about even and odd numbers.  

REMINDERS AND ANNOUCEMENTS
-Field trip forms are due on Monday 8/14
-Field trip is on 8/28 (shoes and home lunch is needed)
-1st PE is scheduled for 8/29 (shoes needed to participate)
-Spelling homework will begin next week (see AVID binder ELA tab for schedule or homework page on website
-Oral fluency homework will begin next week (1-minute reading/word count)
-Wonders comprehension homework will begin next week
-Don't forget to check and sign your child's planner daily!  Thank you!
-Please help your child log the genre he or she reads daily.  It is important to expose them to the correct vocabulary when referring to the books they read.  The Genre-at-a-Glance chart is located behind the reading log (laminated to the manilla folder).