HERO HERALD
January 8, 2015
I hope everyone had a great first week back! I know I did. I definitely missed spending
all day with your children and it is nice to get settled back into a routine again. We were all a
little off on Monday, but, as the week progressed, we picked back up right where we left off
in December. In Writing Workshop, the students are continuing letter writing about favorite
characters and books. Writing this week made us very hungry, because we used
Opinion
Reason
Example
Opinion (restated)
to help us remember what our letters need to have. Students even double-stuffed their
letters by including two reasons and examples!  In math this week, we reviewed and
studied for a Benchmark test that required knowledge of all four topics that we’ve learned
so far. Students worked hard to refresh their memories on the strategies from all four topics.
Students ended the week by beginning Topic 5: Subtract Within 100 Using Strategies. In
Reading Workshop, we are also continuing our study of characters. There were many topics
of focus this week! We talked about tone of voice, and how saying things in different ways
might change the intention of the sentence. We also looked at how sometimes our
characters might act out of character; we worked hard to figure out why this might happen.
We also talked about idioms, unfamiliar settings, and how to find clues in the book to help us
with the movie in our minds. In social studies this week, we began studying landforms.
Students read about landforms, watched some videos, and began making a landform book.
Some of the videos we watched showed amazing real pictures of landforms, and others
were funny and offered us tricks to remember them. Students especially loved videos by Mr.
DeMaio. He was quite silly.
I wanted to use this newsletter to share some of the other work that students do in
school, that you might not get to see…at least not until the end of the year! 
Weekend News: This is where your children write a small moment, also called a
personal narrative, to share something about the weekend’s adventures. All of you
peeked at this book during conferences.
Minutes to Spare: This is a book filled with some extra activities for those moments when
students finish a task a bit earlier than their peers, but do not have enough time to
begin something new.
Jumpstarts: This is a weekly activity that has a bit of everything in it…math, logic,
handwriting, and punctuation, for example.
Word Ladders: This is a thinking and vocabulary strengthening activity where the
children are provided clues to change one word to another by changing one or two
letters at a time.
Writer’s Notebook: This is the book that each student decorated with pictures. It is also
the place where students practice our mentor authors’ writing “moves”. The children
also try cool new ways to express themselves! This book was also shared during
conferences.
Word Study Notebook: These are the books that the children use to practice all of the
new spelling patterns and rules they are learning in word study.
Reader’s Response Sticky Notes: This is the place where the children record all of their
thoughts, ideas, connections, questions and observations about what we are reading.
Writing and Art Projects: These are being saved for “memory boxes”, which we will
create in June. For example, our community-themed triptychs and our winter
snowflakes will be placed in these special boxes.
I also wanted to say THANK YOU, again, for your incredibly generous gifts and kind
words. I truly appreciate it. I absolutely love working with your children all day and being
able to watch them learn and grow. Your support and encouragement is a wonderful
bonus. 
Reminders
Monday is Day 3: Music. We also have Guidance, not Gym, on Tuesday.
Unfortunately, our iXL subscription will expire any day now, but please continue to log
on and enjoy the site while we still have it!
If you have not already done so, please return your child’s art smock.
If you are a chaperone for our Arden Field Trip, please be sure to send in the
chaperone fee of $14. I am sure it will be a fun trip on Wednesday, January 20th.
Table talk: Conversation starters for the dinner table.
What was it like to be back in school for a whole week?
Why were Mr. DeMaio’s videos so funny?
How many landforms can you name?
Why did writing make you hungry? How did it help you to write your
letter?
Have a wonderful weekend!
Becka Cancelosi