Mrs.

Swales Love-Bug Weekly Learnings

March 29th, 2014

!ea ing !estaurant

&s a special reading month treat, the 'o$e (ugs created a )eading )estaurant! *ach child wrote a delicious menu listing book titles that could be read independently. Together, we wrote an in$itation to +iss Te,awit, first graders asking them to $isit our reading restaurant. It was a great way for the kindergarteners to feel proud of their independent reading-reading to the first graders. %or desert, +iss T brought cookies to share. Thank you +iss T! 'ater that day, other teachers caught wind of our restaurant and came by for a $isit as well! What a special way to celebrate reading month!

Wor

Work an

Sight Wor s

This week"s new sight word was 'ro(. #a$e your child sing you the new sight word song. This month, to go along with word sliders, we had one word each day to decode by using the strategy of looking at the chunks and thinking about what makes sense. The context was spring. This was great and fun daily practice for these decoding skills. %or word work time, the children learned about word families, and looked at the word family chunk and thought of words that also started with that chunk and had that chunk in the middle of the word.

Math" Su%traction &ast Math &ri ay

This week, children had the opportunity to practice their subtraction skills independently at math centers. This allowed me to see who needed additional teaching, and those that needed more challenging practice (differentiation). We also practiced writing our own subtraction number stories.

Share

!ea ing" #oats are #reat$

This weeks shared reading text, Goats are Great, was a perfect book for building reading stamina. It was a longer text and as children are becoming more fluent with their reading strategies, they are learning to read longer text. They do get tired but by following their lead and encouraging ust a bit more each day, they are building endurance, ust like we would with exercise! We are excersicing our brains!

Classroom Newsletter

Love Bug Learnings

March 29th, 2014

Writers Worksho)" *)inion Writing

This week we began a new writing unit, opinion writing! We began by learning how to state our feelings about a book that we had read together, then supporting those feelings with two examples from the book. We did this orally first, where children sat with a partner and took turns listening and sharing (good practice) and then shared writing together with me writing their ideas. .uring this stage of learning a new style, there is a lot of discussion before actual writing, but the kids were so cute, begging for writing time, e$en some of them grabbing their writing folders anytime they finished an acti$ity early. I lo$e their passion for writing!

Mrs. Swales Surgery

I will be out of the classroom this upcoming week (four days) for surgery on my leg and ankle. I know the kids will ha$e a fantastic time with our guest teacher. If you are interested in helping in the classroom while I am gone, you can e2mail me and I would gladly communicate this with our guest teacher . 1e2t week, 3 encourage you to sto) in an take a look through our lost an 'oun . 3' nee e , sen an e2tra %ag 'or your chil +s snow clothes to co(e ho(e4.ho)e'ully 'or goo $

Weekly Sche ule

+onday 673 +usic Tuesday 73 &rt, 8omputers Wednesday 93 :* Thursday 63 +usic, 'ibrary %riday ;3 <1 /8#11' -on+t 'orget to return your li%rary %ook so you are a%le to check out a new one$

&lat Stanley+s , venture

This week, our guest teacher will be reading from the chapter book, %lat /tanley0s &d$eture. 1n Thursday, they will bring home a %lat /tanley of their own, along with instructions for this acti$ity. Whether you take a $acation away from home o$er spring break, or ust hang out around town-.I will encourage you to ha$e your child take %lat /tanley along. Take pictures of your child with %lat /tanley and then your child will write about it! /ee the details in your child0s Tra$el %older this upcoming week, and through an e2mailed note as well 3 ) These pro ects are fun for us to see what our friends did o$er $acation.

.)-/o(ing 0vents

&pril ;27;3 /pring =acation > <o /chool &pril 993 *arth .ay +ay 993 International %esti$al of 8ultures +ay 9?3 +emorial .ay > <o /chool +ay 9@3 &ll2/chool Trip to a +usic 8oncert at the *'#/ +ay 9A3 %esti$al )ain .ate

.on0t forget to make time to read, +elissa /wales /wales4mr5elps.us