Spelling Counts

It's almost like when one holiday is over, the next is right around the corner. Can you hear the gobble of the turkeys? Can you smell the fresh baked pie? Do you taste the stuffing yet? Thanksgiving is fast approaching and the seasonal changes that come with it have been long underway. Students in Room 108 have been asked to use a variety of their senses and thinking skills to connect to the variety of aspects this wonderful holiday offers. From a book and biographical writing of Sarah Hale, to the step-by-step process of how to draw a turkey, Thanksgiving is a theme we will be gobbling up until the feast is upon us!

All the turkey talk is in addition to the standardized curriculum infused into our daily routine. Open Court reading is now in Unit 4 titled "Our Neighborhood at Work" and focuses on a the vast assortment of jobs, careers, and workers in our surrounding community. Major reading skills will include making connections, comprehension, drawing inferences, and comparing/contrasting. This unit matches nicely with our current social studies unit about our community. Children will be analyzing not only vocations and people of our community but also the physical characteristics of our neighborhood.

Everyday Math is now progressing into new concepts of measurement. Measuring will require new tools like thermometers and rulers, in addition to non-standard (human adapted) units of measurement like a digit, hand width or fathom. Students will continue to practice concepts like frames and arrows and number sequence while taking other skills to a deeper level, like telling time and coin counting. This section of Everyday Math matches nicely with our science topic of Solids and Liquids (formerly Properties of Matter) as students will soon be asked to distinguish and match traits of objects based on characteristics such as size, shape, and color.

Spelling words will be added as part of the writing process this week. Word patterns and spellings will match very closely to daily and weekly phonics skills and literature exposure. The spelling list will be posted on the right hand side of the blog starting on Mondays after school.

In parting, I will leave you with a very general and manageable Thanksgiving link from Scholastic. I don't know about you but I feel like I've learn something new about each holiday every year. I guess that comes with the territory. Thanks for reading and I'll see you on the blacktop!

A Halloween Montage

An observation of Veteran's Day granted us an extended weekend and the next two and half weeks will be include the next level of growth leading up to the end of the first trimester, and Thanksgiving break. Game Day for Unit 3 will happen this Tuesday, November 10 with Unit 4 in reading and math beginning the next day. I understand there have been some students that have missed multiple days of school but everyone has done a great job keeping up with missed work. Thank you parents for taking such strong initiative in keeping your child connected with classroom content!

Thanks to those of you that sent pictures in from the Halloween celebration and art appreciation. You will be able to see some shots from Room 108 in the slideshow on the right hand sidebar. I created a simple video montage video using iMovie. The song choice was inspired by the recent theatre release of the Michael Jackson movie This Is It. I had a chance to see the movie and it was inspiring in the sense that Michael Jackson really was a tremendously talented entertainer who nearly perfected the art of performance. Thriller also has an eerily familiar Halloween feel. Enjoy!