2/23/2018 0 Comments Mayer Memo 2-23-18Sound and Harmonica
We wrapped up the sound unit with the written assessment last week. The children did a FANTASTIC job playing their harmonicas for an audience this week. I am very excited about their musical talents after just five hours of instruction. Please encourage your child to continue playing at home. The harmonicas, books, and gift certificates were sent home with your child on Tuesday. If your child would like to continue studying the harmonica, piano, or drums you can schedule your two complimentary lessons with Mr. Milan by contacting him at 708-612-PLAY. Parent-Teacher Conferences are NEXT WEEK! I have been conducting many assessments to prepare for parent-teacher conferences. Please follow the directions you received from the district to sign up for a conference! I look forward to meeting with you to share your student's progress very soon! Reading Workshop The children are working to become better readers in a variety of ways. Because most students are reading longer, more complex books, they need to keep track of what's happening in these books as they read. One strategy for doing this is to ask a partner for help if the book is confusing. Another way to keep track of longer books is to use sticky notes to write important events from the story and to make notes to remember things. Hopefully, students are also stopping to reread if they get off track and are asking themselves questions to be sure they understand the text. Many students are reading the same book as their partners and they can talk about their book during share time. We are also using the strategies for keeping track of longer books with our read aloud, The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, by Kate Di Camillo. The students are becoming deeper thinkers about the text and we are having wonderful conversations about this great book. Writing Workshop We continued working on opinion writing the past two weeks. The children have learned the most convincing letters state a clear opinion (Pinky and Rex is a fantastic book!), giving a specific reason (The character, Pinky and Rex, really care about one another.), then supporting it with examples from the text (For example, when Pinky was sad Rex tried many things to cheer him up.) Their published letters about favorite books and those are on display in the hall. This week the students began writing nominations for book awards. For example, they chose a book they felt strongly about and wrote what a judge might need to know to give that book an award. We brainstormed awards they thought their books might deserve, such as Best Book About History for Kids Award, Most Funny Award, Most Colorful Pictures Award, etc, I am very impressed with their growth in opinion writing since we started this unit! Math We are working on Unit 5 in Investigations Math. The first investigation in this unit is about combinations of 100. Students add and subtract 10, 20, and 30 and 1, 2, and 3, to or from 2-digit numbers as they try to capture 5 chips scattered around a 100 chart. They solve 2-step story problems about money and stickers and figure out how much more they need in order to have 100 or $1.00. Students continue to review and practice addition and subtraction facts and consider the relationship between adding 9 and 10 and subtracting 9 and 10 when the +/−𝟫+/−9 Fact Cards are added to their set. The second investigation will be about adding within 100 and counting to 1000. Students will think about combinations that make 100 as they try to find pairs of 2-digit numbers that equal a number close to 100. They also revisit activities that extend the rote counting sequence to 1,000. They practice reading, writing, and comparing 3-digit numbers, skip counting within that range, and adding 10 or 100 to any 3-digit number. They use the stickers to represent 3-digit numbers as hundreds, tens, and ones. The third investigation will be about fluency within 100. Students will solve story problems, including comparison problems with a bigger unknown and problems with more than one step. They will focus on developing efficient and accurate strategies for adding 2-digit numbers within 100, specifically those that involve adding tens and ones and adding on one number in parts. Social Studies We dove into our Economics theme this week by learning about needs, wants, technology, saving, and many other concepts related to economics, or the working world. The students are reading the social studies text and learning how to find definitions for key vocabulary words by looking around the bold or highlighted words in the text. We are having many fabulous conversations about this topic! I hope you are hearing about it at home! Word Study and Other Concepts About English Due to the short weeks of school, I have not introduced new word study sorts. Instead, we have discussed how to write abbreviations and identified verbs. Ask your child to tell you about these concepts! Valentine’s Day Party Was Wonderful Thanks to our fabulous room parents for a fun, memorable Valentine's Day party! We loved every minute of the activities! The children enjoyed playing games, making "Cupid's Clubhouse," and enjoying the yummy treats! What a great day!
0 Comments
2/9/2018 0 Comments Mayer Memo 2-9-18Valentine’s Day is Coming in 2 Ma We will celebrate Valentine’s Day on Wednesday, February 14 with a party from 2:00-3:00. Each child has been writing a thoughtful, personalized valentine to each of the other children in the class. Students have also made an envelope to receive their valentines. Because of this, students need not bring store bought valentines or valentines made at home. However, if your child has already made valentines and would like to bring them, s/he may do so as long as s/he brings in one for everyone in the class. Harmonica Share will be Tuesday, February 20 from 2:00-3:00! Mark your calendar so you can come! We've been hard at work learning how to play the harmonica with instruction from Mr. Milan. The students have learned to play many songs, and we are trying to decide which songs we’ll play when parents come to listen at the Harmonica Share. Mr. Milan brought in very large and small cymbals to reinforce the concept of pitch and a special drum from Mexico to reinforce the concept that vibration causes sound. Ask your child to tell you about this! The children watched a fascinating video about sound which provided information that enabled the children to confirm a great amount of their learning from our experiments. They also conducted an experiment to learn the pattern for how to change volume. They will take the sound written assessment next week. Math For the past two weeks the children have been working on investigations in Unit 4 which involved collecting, organizing and representing data. They learned how to classify information into categories based on similar characteristics. They also learned how to make a bar graph to represent information. They conducted a survey of Lincoln students to see how many teeth they'd lost and represented their findings in a line plot. The students discovered graphs must include a clear title and labels. They also learned to interpret data on graphs. They created line plots of teeth lost by "mystery classes" then matched the graph to the class based on the data. Finally, the children took the assessment for this investigation, and they did a great job! Writing Workshop In writing, the students have been writing letters to classmates with their opinions about their favorite books. The children have learned to structure their letters by identifying their opinion, explain the reason for their opinion, and provide examples from the text to support their opinions. They have learned how to craft good leads that hook their reader right from the start, and to create endings that remind the reader of their opinions. I've seen their love of books grow with this unit along with their conversations about what makes a good book! Word Work Last week The children compared words that are spelled /aw/ paw, crawl, hawk, lawn and /au/ as in cause. They discovered that words are spelled /aw/ when it comes at the end of the word/syllable or is followed by l, k, or n. Words are spelled /au/ when it comes in the beginning or middle of the word word/syllable. This week they compared words that are spelled /ow/ as in plow, howl, and down, and /ou/ as in count. They discovered words that make this sound are spelled /ow/ when it comes at the end of the word/syllable or is followed by l or n. The sound is spelled /ou/ when it comes in the beginning or middle of the word word/syllable. Some students also worked with words spelled /ou/ and make the short u sound such as rough. Reading We continued reading The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, by Kate Di Camillo. We talked about how good readers notice literary language and stop to think about what the author wants us to think based on the language. Students worked with a partner to read the same book and notice literary language as they read. We also talked about how partners can work separately then come together to share their thinking about a story. We discussed how good readers hold on to longer stories by thinking, "What is important in the section I just read?" and writing their thinking on a sticky note. We did this work together with the read aloud and students did this independently with their shared book and books they are reading on their own. Parent-Teacher Conferences I've conducted several assessments as I prepare for upcoming parent-teacher conferences. I look forward to sharing your child's progress with you soon! |
We are the Mayer Black Panthers
Mystery State!Mystery state for June 1 Did You Know...New evidence links handwriting and educational success.
Children not only learn to read more quickly when they first learn to write by hand, but they also remain better able to generate ideas and retain information. "When we write, a unique neural circuit is automatically activated,” said Stanislas Dehaene, a psychologist at the Collège de France in Paris. “There is a core recognition of the gesture in the written word, a sort of recognition by mental simulation in your brain. And it seems that this circuit is contributing in unique ways we didn’t realize,” he continued. “Learning is made easier.” Parent's attitudes about mathematics affect their kids!
"A 2015 study showed math-anxious parents who frequently helped their elementary schoolers with homework saw their kids learn significantly less math by the end of the year than kids whose parents didn't express an aversion to math." (Heidi Stevens, Balancing Act and Chicago Tribune) According to Jennifer McCray, Principal investigator at the Erikson Institute's Early Math Collaborative, "Statements from parents are extremely powerful in terms of helping a child decide, 'Who am I going to be relative to math" How should I feel about math?'" If you're a math-averse parent, the article linked above has great tips for addressing this! Archives
June 2018
|