Classroom Needs

I can hardly believe that we are into the last trimester of the year.  This is the time when the year starts to fly by.  With all of our hard work, we have used up some of our supplies.  Here are some things we could use.  

• Some of our friends still need markers.  Our community markers are beginning to bite the dust.  
• Hand Sanitizer - We need to get rid of some of our sick germs in here! 
• Gallon sized zipper bags
• Glue sticks - This is our greatest need.  We could use lots!
• Glue bottles - We have none!  There are some projects that just stick better with glue bottles.  

Thank you all for everything.  I seriously have the best and most supportive families that I have ever had!  

The Highlight Reel - Week 25

We did some great work in reading groups this week.   Not only did we learn about strategies but we did lots of comprehension too.  Some groups learned about inferring, others learned about making connections.   I am going to try having the kids bring their reading group books home over the weekend to read to you. When your child is reading encourage them to point to each word as they read.  If they are stuck on a word, you can tell them to check the picture, tap it out, or reread and think what might sound right using the first letter as a clue. Please have them read it a couple times and then put it back in the reading bag and send back to school on Monday.  If this goes well, I'd like to try to send a reading group book home every other week!  

(A couple of cute library pictures.)

We have been diligently writing our non-fiction books.  This week we used three fingers to plan our facts and we told our facts across three pages.  After this, I realized that many of the kids were still having trouble coming up with facts.  So we learned about using the words, can, are and have.  We made a chart together about butterflies using these word to help us tell what we know.  Then we used the chart to write our own non-fiction books.  Some of us chose butterflies and some of us used the words to teach about other things.  There were books about boxing, pools, cheetahs, beta fish, Tyrannosaurus Rex and more!  Ask your child to tell you some facts that he/she wrote.  

In math we learned about counting on.  We practiced doing it verbally and we also learned how to show this work on paper.  I am super impressed by our kids number sense.  

On Friday, we had our citizen of the month assembly.  Congrats to this friend!  

We also had a special dental health presentation to learn all about how we can keep our teeth healthy.   We learned to brush twice a day for two minutes each!

Things to note:  

• Please send your reading logs to school on Monday.  I will collect them and send a new one for March.
• We will have our next brown bag lunch on May 12.  I know this is still far away but I wanted you to have the date.  
• On March 2nd your child may dress up in their favorite Dr. Seuss wear to celebrate Dr. Seuss' birthday.  
• March 7 will be an early release day.  School will be dismissed at 12:50.
• Kindergarten registration will be here at Beulah on March 9.  If you know someone with a kindergartner send them our way!  
• March 14 - Math Night at BEU.  Come and join us for some fun!  6:00-7:30
• March 27-31 - No School - Spring Break

A Week in Review - A little late!

I hope you all enjoyed your nice long weekend!  My family spent some time in St. Louis.  I took my computer so that I could blog but I forgot the cord and my computer died!  So here is last week's update.  

We are doing lots with non-fiction.  This week we sorted fiction books and non-fiction books.  We talked lots about features that help us know which is which.  Here are some of the things we noticed.  

Fiction: 

Told like a story

Has a beginning, middle and end

Not real

Non - Fiction:

Has real pictures

Has bold words

Has a table of contents

Tells true facts.  

Check out some of the books we sorted!

We are also writing some non-fiction books too!  We talked about telling true facts in our books and teaching about things we are experts on.  Check out some of our fabulous work!  

In math we are working on counting on.  We played a game where we flashed a number on our fingers with a partner.  Then we counted all the fingers to find out how many we have.  We also learned how to show counting all on paper.  

We learned about the bossy e this week.  We learned that when there is an e on the end of a word, the e bosses the other vowel and tells it to say it's name.  We read lots of three letter words then added an e to see how it changed.  Check it out!

We also had lots of valentines day fun!  Thanks to Johnston Paint for donating our fabulous paint buckets to 

hold our valentines!  We added our own personal touches and turned them into valentine mailboxes.  

The party was great success!  Thanks to all the wonderful parents that helped make it possible.  You all are the best!  

Other announcements:

• No checklists last week due to conferences.  Thank you so much to everyone who came!  We had 100% attendance!  Hooray! 

• Beginning the week I am going to keep the blue folders here at school for the week.  We will use them more like Friday Folders.  Our kids are having trouble remember to take them back and forth and we rarely use them during the week.  Since the reading logs are usually kept in the back of the folder, I am asking that families take them out and keep them at home.  Please return them at the end of the month.  I will send a reminder before I am collecting them.  At our house we clip ours to our refrigerator so we always know where it is!  Thanks for your help with this new routine.  I think it will be more efficient and help kids keep track of them!