We have been talking a lot about reading strategies this week. When we come to a tricky word, we can use...
Chunky Monkey - look for parts that we know
              examples:
              flower (fl is a blend   ow is a chunk   er is a chunk)
              thermometer (th is a digraph   er is a chunk  mom is a no excuse word  et is a chunk   er is a chunk)
We have been going over "funky chunky" every other day to know our chunks.  See if your child can recite any of their "funky chunky" to you.  On days that we do not go over funky chunky, we go over the blends and digraphs chart.  Although many of us know our blends and digraphs, we do not always use them in our writing. We are trying to become more aware of that!

Skippy frog - read the sentence and skip over the tricky word.  Read to the period and then GO BACK.  Plug in what makes sense AND looks right.
             example: If we didn't know the word barn in the following sentence, we could use the other words                as clues and think about what would make sense.  The barn had cows and sheep.  We may think of              the words farm and barn, but only barn would make sense AND look right.

Flippy dolphin - Flip the vowel sound.  We know the vowels a,e,i,o,and u have 2 sounds: short and long.  If we try one sound and it doesn't sound right, we could try the other vowel sound.  (example: dino or acorn)

This week we started counting money for math.  If you have any real life experiences with shopping with cash (I know in this day and age many people don't use actual cash anymore) please have your child help you count all the coins and figure out the change!

We also worked on our writing assessments.  I am so excited to get scores on all of these and share them at conferences!  Next week we will be talking about what America means to us in preparation for a Veterans Day Assembly coming up soon. Try to help your child come up with ideas that he or she can write about.  We will be reading some books and watching some videos about our country next week to help us come up with some ideas.  A lucky writer will be reading their paper in front of the whole school!

Writing: This week in writing we continued to look at our leads in our personal narratives.  We learned how to come up with a question lead that "hooks our readers."  We also looked at several examples of a 1,2,3, and 4 writing sample.  Next week we will take out writing assessment, and we are aiming for a 3 (proficient). This means we have a good lead, lots of details, transition words, lots of sentences that make our readers have a movie in their head, correct spelling, and punctuation.

Reading: Reading groups have been going well!  We have all been working on fiction stories.  Many groups are working on inferring and predictions, as well as answering specific questions about their reading.  We have also been working on reading strategies.  This week we focused on "chunky monkey."  This means we find parts (chunks) of a word that we know.  We can also use this strategy to help with spelling!  Ask your child if they can remember any of the "funky chunky" word parts we have been working on.

Math: We finished up our unit this week on place value and we took our test today.  Any time we take a unit test and your child scores below an 80%, there will be a packet of review work that comes home to complete at their (your) leisure.  That does not mean that we will not continue to work on these skills at school, but it is just some extra practice to do at home.  This packet will come home on Monday.  Our next unit is on counting money.  Please practice this skill at home!

We also finished up our unit on Geography.  Next week we will be starting our health unit on organs!

Other news:

*ST math code was sent today

*Scholastic book orders were sent today through email!

*Next week someone in our class will be receiving the "citizen of the month" award.  Students vote on who this should be, and it is kept a surprise to that student until the actual assembly.  

*We will also have our Halloween party next week on Friday at 2pm!

Today we learned how to use our Osmos!!  We used a spelling one for the Daily 5, and a tangram and numbers one for math groups.  It was a lot of fun!

Save the date!  October 18th we will be having a "brown sack lunch" day with parents.  From 11:45-12:15 parents will be invited to come join their child to eat in the classroom.  Parents may bring in a special lunch for their child.  More information will come home next week!

This week has gone by so fast!
We got to vote for a mascot this week!!  We voted for a bird and a mammal.  The owls won for birds, and the wolves won for mammals  Our next voting session will be in November.  This week we also had picture day and fire prevention week (we got to see a skit on fire prevention today!).

Math- Math groups are off to a good start! This week we finished our unit on equal groups.  We learned how to make arrays and do repeated addition. Our next unit is on place value.  We will be learning about tens and ones. We also took our STAR math this week.

Reading-This week we practiced the expectations for reading groups, as well as received our reading journals.  This is where we will answer questions about what we read. We also wrote down genres of books that we would like to read during group time.
For shared reading we are working on asking questions as we read.  We know that good readers ask questions before, during, and after reading.  See if your child can tell you the 5 w's!  We also took our STAR reading test this week.  These scores will be shared at parent teacher conferences.

Writing- We continued to work on using a plan sheet to guide our writing, while focusing on good details.  Next week we will dive deeper into good leads that "hook a reader."