Week of November 16, 2015
______________‘s
Reading Log & Newsletter
Today I read with…
Comments…
Monday:
Tuesday:
Wednesday:
Thursday:
Friday:
Saturday:
Sunday:
I had a connection to
______________________________
My connection was:
_______________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________
______
IMPORTANT DATES and REMINDERS:
Our first KinderKoncertz trip
is on Thursday, November
19th. We depart at 9:00!
If you send a note to
school, please include your
child’s first and last name
as well as my name. These
are required for the office
and I end up writing them
in if they are missing!
Early Release Day on
Tuesday, November 24th for
conferences.
Thanksgiving break is
Wednesday, November
25th-27th.
Parent/Teacher
conferences are November
24th and 25th. Please let me
know as soon as possible if
you need to reschedule.
***FLIP OVER 
Week of November 16, 2015
What did we learn last week?
Math: We began learning about shapes this week as we dove into Chapter 5: Exploring Shapes and Patterns.
We learned about plane shapes and how they are alike and different. Students sorted and classified shapes
based on color, size, shape, number of sides and number of corners. We also explored what happens when we
fold or cut shapes as a precursor to symmetry, which is learned in later grades.
Word Study: Students learned more about digraphs and created a chart of the most common ones. We
brainstormed words that have digraphs then found them in our morning messages and in our weekly poem.
Each student now has a digraph chart in their literacy binder to help them during reading and writing. New
word sort activities were introduced as well.
Reader’s Workshop: Last week was all about thinking while reading. We discussed how our prior knowledge
helps us not only solve tricky words, but understand what we read as well. We talked about connections that
we make while reading including connections to our lives, to other books, and to things we have heard about or
learned about. Please note that I am now asking for students to connect to a book on the reading log instead of
saying what their favorite book was!
Writer’s Workshop: Our focus last week was on how to use punctuation in our writing. This is very tricky for
first graders and I am very proud of the progress they are making! We also worked on spicing up our writing
with “sparkly” words. On Friday the students did an “on demand” piece in which they had one Writer’s
Workshop session to write a small moment using everything they know about writing. I will share this with
you at conference time!
Social Studies/Science: We continued to talk about families and had a great conversation that stemmed from
a book we read. The students did a fabulous job articulating that families are all the same in one way – they
love and care for each other. For science, we combined with Mrs. Martin and Ms. Dunn to watch a video (yes,
VHS!) about autumn. The students practiced their computer skills by typing a sentence about autumn and then
creating a picture to match their story. Our computer skills are improving!
Our little authors, hard at work!