Week 4

Dear Parents,

Although last week was only 3 days, the students of Room 5 got a lot done.  

In math we have been very busy learning about the hundreds place.  Students have been exploring up to 3-digit numbers with base ten blocks, number strips, and place value charts.  As we work with 3-digit numbers here are some of the ways your child is seeing them:

274
two hundred seventy-four
200 + 70 + 4,         
2 hundreds 7 tens 4 ones
hundreds tens ones
       2       7       4

We practiced renaming up to a 3-digit number.  This is a difficult skill but students are getting better and better at being able to rename numbers.  We have been working on this skill everday and will continue to review this skill often to continue to build our number fluency.  

Another math skill being worked on is writing number words up 3-digits.  I am allowing students to use their math folders or journal as a resource so that they are spelling the number words correctly.

This week students will be introduced to another tool to help us to continue our work with 3-digit numbers.  The tool is number discs.  We will use number discs to help relate ones, tens, and hundreds to money.

We will tackle comparing numbers (greater than, less than, and equal to) up to 1,000.  Students will also review counting on and counting back by 1, 2, 10, 20, and 100.

Here is this week's homework.  Please have your child work for 15 minutes on the following objectives.

Monday-A.5 Number Chart
Tuesday-M.4 Value of Underlined Digit
Wednesday-B.1 Comparing Numbers Up to 100
Thursday-B.3 Comparing Numbers Up to 1,000

Speaking of homework, last week homework went much smoother.  I didn't hear from anyone that they were having a problem, YAHOO!  I do want to remind you that when your child works on IXL be sure that they are logged in as themselves NOT as a guest.  If they do accidently forget to log in and end up doing their homework as a guest please be sure to email me so that they get credit for completing their homework.  Starting this week students not completing homework will need to attend study hall.

We are getting close to completing our first project--Tribes in Action.  During the first 2 weeks of school we worked on learning about the Tribes Agreements--Attentive Listening, Mutual Respect, Appreciations, Right to Pass, and No Put-Downs.  This past week students were broken into groups (They selected their top 3 agreements that they wanted to work on.) and they have been using their knowledge and a class created circle map to create a definition for their assigned agreement.  This week the groups will be writing a script for a skit about their agreement that they will perform for the Kindergarten class the week of September 15th.  I am so excited to see the end project.

This week we will also complete our first writing project--a riddle about ourselves complete with a self portrait.  This writing project will not only create a great beginning writing piece for your child's writing portfolio, it is also taking the students through the complete Writing Process--prewriting, rough draft, editing and revising, and final draft.  I am so proud of the writers in Room 5.  They are doing an amazing job with this first piece, I can't wait to get them hung in the hallway.  I wonder if you will be able to guess which one is your child!!

Just a few final "odds and ends"...  

Our schedule is being adjusted ever so slightly.  Students are a bit listless in the afternoon and the playground is very crowded with other classrooms having a P.E. at the end of the day, so Mrs. Sorensen and myself (with Mrs. Mackedon's blessing) have decided to move P.E. to 3:00-3:30.  The updated schedule is in the Blog. 

I also wanted to point out we have 2 snack opportunities a day.  The first is during our morning recess 9:35-9:50 and the second snack is in class, a working snack time from 2:30-2:40 during our language time.  Every morning students put their 2 snacks for the day in their cubby.  We are trying to avoid going back into the hall for students to get snacks out of their backpacks (too time consuming and takes away from teaching/learning time if I have to stand in the doorway and monitor students in the hall).

Looking forward to another great week!!

Sincerely,
Anne Bloomfield