We Love Our Reading Buddies!!

     This week we got together with our 5th grade reading buddies.  We had a great time reading and discussing the books.  We will get together once a month to read with the same buddy.  Ask your child if he/she remembers his/her buddy's name.  The photos below show our class with their buddies.

Happy Fall!  This is what our door looks like now. 

We measured ingredients for Kool-Aid Play-doh and we each got a chance to knead the dough and take it home.  A few students asked for the recipe so here it is: 2 c. flour, 1 c. salt, 4 tsp. cream of tartar, 1 envelope Kool-Aid, 2 c. water, 2 T oil.  Mix everything together and microwave on high for 4 min., stirring every 40 seconds.  Cool, and then knead into a ball- you may need to sprinkle with flour.

   This week we also attended a presentation by Kathy Gust about internet safety.  If you would like to view the website go to netsmartzkids.org  

    In Math we worked on arrays.  We learned that rows are horizontal and columns are vertical.  It's exciting to think that repeated addition (3+3+3+3=12) is the first step to multiplication!

   We learned about author's purpose with a pie!  P means the author is trying to persuade us, I means the author is giving us information, and E means the author wants us to be entertained. 

   In Grammar we learned about nouns and commas in a series.  Our Fun Friday centers were great!  We rolled dice to add the numbers together, made our Halloween treat bags, completed rhyming and antonym puzzles, and put story pictures in a sequence.

    Our 2 Studies Weekly Magazines told us about historical figures and Technology in the classroom.  We enjoyed a full week of work!

     Please remember to put a name on any lunch money sent to school.  

    

   Our Halloween party will be next Friday, the 31st.  Students should wear their costumes but leave any props at home.  Room Moms will be calling for people to bring a snack and drink.  If you would like to send small, wrapped treats for our trick-or-treating bags, they would be welcomed.  The party is from 2-2:30.  Parents are welcome to come if they would like to. 

Important Dates: Book order is due 10/29

                            Game Club is 10/31-send in a board game if you'd like to.

                           Halloween party- 10/31

Short Week

Even on the short weeks we manage to get so much done! 
Our focus this week in reading was to make and confirm predictions when reading a story.  We also learned how to use quotation marks and how to combine sentences with the same predicate or subject. 


In Math we practiced skip counting by 2's, 5's, and 10's.  The tough part is skip counting backwards!

On Fire Prevention Day we learned what to do if there is a fire in our house.  The fire personnel did a great job preparing us for what a fire-person would look and sound like in full gear.

In SS we learned more about Columbus as well as other famous explorers. 

We read about God as the Creator, the Almighty, and the Father in Religion. 

  We continue to work on our narrative about a tradition in our family.  Please talk over your traditions together so your child can add lots of detail to his/her writing.

    Our Student Teacher, Mrs. Parfinski, is doing a great job and is slowly taking over more of the teaching duties.  It is so wonderful having an extra pair of hands and eyes in the classroom.  It allows me to help those who may need extra help or an extra challenge. 

Thank you for coming to P/T conferences.  I enjoyed talking to you about your child and I appreciate all of the support you give us at home.  

Important Dates:  Next week is Red Ribbon Week for Anti-Drugs and Bullying. 
10/20- Wear a team jersey
10/21-Kathy Gust speaks about bullying
10/22- Wear red and bring a canned food, Mass at 9:40
10/24- Wear jeans and DeSales top
10/31- Halloween party and Game Club 

Celebrate YOU!

The students did a wonderful job on their Celebrate Me! projects.  They were very creative and we learned a lot about each other. After presenting the project to the class and asking for questions or comments, we displayed them in the hall for everyone to see.  They will be coming back home in a few weeks.  Enjoy the creativity on these photos!

Locker Art: Here are some of the Fractured Pumpkins that the students created.  Each of them have such different personalities!

We are so excited to have started being reading buddies with Mrs. Shipley's pre-K students.  A small group of children went down to read to their buddies this week.  The pre-K students had a book that they wrote and wanted to read to us as well.  Next month a different group of children will go down to share this special time with the class.

We fit a lot of other activities into our week as well.  We continue to work on identifying the main idea and details in a story.  The concept of "main idea" is a difficult one.  

 We had a great time on our field trip to the CFA.  I hope your child discussed the musical with you when he/she got home.  I was very proud of how well behaved our group was.

We started writing our second narrative this week by using a Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How graphic organizer.  We are writing about a tradition in our families.  Please discuss with  your child what tradition he/she is writing and interesting details that could be added to the writing.  We hope to publish the writing in a book.  You will get more information about that later. 

In Math we continued to work on two step word problems and fact families.  Everyone seems to have a good handle on related facts. Next week we will work on skip counting.

Next week we will have Fire Prevention Day on Tuesday.  Firemen come in and teach us what to do in case of a fire in our homes. 

Important Dates: 

10/13- Columbus Day- No School

10/17- Conference Day- 1/2 Day

Have a lovely, long weekend.  I hope you can get out and enjoy the Fall colors!

Happy October!

These are our narratives about the first day of school.  We made a draft, revised our writing, edited it, made a final copy, and presented it to the class.  I think everyone did a great job.

     Our student teacher, Mrs. Parfinski, has been teaching us about fact families in math.  We've gotten lots of practice in class with worksheets and games.  Click on the link at right to practice fact families online. 
     In SS we learned about working hard and used map skills to learn more about our country. 
     In Science we learned about parts of the eye and worked together to see how the pupil expands and contracts depending on the amount of light. 
     We continued our discussion of the Holy Trinity in Religion as we learned about each Person in the Trinity.
     You should have received an email link to sign up online for parent/teacher conferences.  Let me know if you didn't.

Important Dates:
10/6- Picture Day- Students may dress in your choice of clothing.
10/8- Field Trip to see Berenstain Bears- wear regular uniforms and bring a bag lunch and drink 
10/10- Mass at 9:40
10/13- Columbus Day- No school
10/17- Parent/Teacher conferences

Happy Birthday Johnny!

Friday was Johnny (Chapman) Appleseed's birthday.  We celebrated by making and eating applesauce.  Here are a few students working with the apple peeler/corer/slicer.  Some of the students wanted the recipe- 16 apples, 1c water, 3/4 c sugar, 1 tsp cinnamon, and 16 students excited to help.  Cook for about 5 hours in crockpot on high. Yum!  We love to cook in school and it helps us with our reading and math skills.

It seems the weeks just fly right by with everything that we have to do. Language Arts takes up a good part of our day.  This week we read about friendship and learned about story structure (beginning, middle, and end).  We also finished our first big writing assignment.  It is a narrative about the first day of school.  The students did a beautiful job and have started presenting the stories in class.  Next week you can see it in my "Locker Art" photos. 

In S.S. we learned about our country's symbols through our "Studies Weekly" magazine.  I hope you and your child read it together when it comes home each week.  It is full of great information. 

We are working on subtraction in math and next week we will start on fact families.  A fact family is all of the addition and subtraction number sentences you can make with 3 numbers.  4+5=9, 5+4=9, 9-5=4, 9-4=5

Our Science this week was all about staying healthy.  We learned about food groups and germs this week as well as parts of the ear.  Most students went home Friday with a balanced "meal" on a paper plate. Next week we will learn about parts of the eye. 

The Holy Trinity was a focus this week in religion.  Ask your child what "tri-" means in Trinity and tricycle.  We are also working hard to participate in Mass by learning the responses.  Please encourage your child to follow along with the Mass when you go to church. 

Important dates: 10/3- In service day- no students
                            10/6- Picture Day and "Celebrate Me" project due
                           10/8- Field trip to "Berenstain Bears"- a bag lunch will be needed

Fun Friday!

Every Friday our school counselor, Mrs. Badura, visits us at snack time to do a little activity.  Today she discussed how everyone is unique.

Thank you to everyone who came for "Back to School Night".  I meant to take a photo of all of the parents sitting at their children's desks but I forgot.  This parent came in early and his was the only photo I remembered to take.  :-(  If you did not make it last night please be sure to read over the information that was sent home.  I am always available if you have questions.

These next photos show your children working hard on the note they wrote for you.

One of our favorite parts of the day is group reading time.

On Fridays we like to do "Fun Friday" after our reading test.  We work on centers (activities) that reinforce the concepts we learned during the week.  One of the centers was a My Plate nutrition game where we matched pictures of food to the correct food group.
At the Listening Center the students enjoyed Stuck in the Mud.  We played Addition/subtraction Bingo at the Math Center, worked with pattern blocks at another Math Center, and reviewed the parts of the ear at the Science Center.

Important Dates: 9/24- Mass at 9:40
                           10/3- In service day- no students
                            10/6- Picture Day
                           10/8- Field trip to "Berenstain Bears"

Week 2!

   On 9/11 we read a wonderful book written by a group of first graders.  It briefly described the events of 9/11 and then went on to describe how America was able to move ahead despite the attacks.  One of our own students summed it up beautifully, "We remember that some bad people ran planes into buildings and we celebrate the heroes that helped everyone".  Another student described going to NYC to see the memorial. 

This week we worked hard to learn new strategies like "make-a-ten", "near doubles",  and "counting on" to help with mental addition. Keep practicing those math facts at home, that's one thing that hasn't changed; it's still necessary to practice, practice, practice.  Online games like mathmagician and Mathlines make that practice more fun (see the links at right). 

Locker Art: Each student wrote a little bit about him/herself and drew a portrait.

We learned that the Bible is divided into the Old Testament and New Testament and that the Psalms are in the Old Testament and the Gospels are in the New Testament. 

Almost every Friday we will have Fun Friday centers.  This week they included a math facts game, the book My Lucky Day at the Listening Center, short and long vowel games, and how-to-draw instructions. 

We had a busy week!  Thanks for working hard on the homework.  Next week we will begin with our spelling and vocabulary words as well as our weekly reading test on Friday.  You can find the words on the pages at right.  Under the Educational Websites you can access "spelling city" to practice the words with games. 

Important Dates: 9/15- STAR testing

9/18- Parent Night

9/24- School Mass