Room 235 Newsletter
12/7/15-12/11/15
Interactive Read Aloud
Workboard
It’s Okay to be Different
Have You Filled A Bucket Today?
Me and You
The Dot
One
Looking at our similarities & differences, encouraging
others to be strong, what we admire about others and
understanding one person can make a difference. Being
brave and standing up for others. Noticing how characters
made a difference and connecting with what they did.
Writing: responses to stories, letters to characters
Interactive/Shared Writing, Word Study
Shared Reading
Fundations: We reviewed Unit 5, had the unit test and
checked it together. We began Unit 6, which focuses on
basewords with the suffix s. We noticed that some words
with this suffix have a z sound at the end like dogs while
other words sound like s such as chips. Trick words this
week: are, were, with, will.
Word study: concentration game with singular and plural
words, make, break & write trick words.
“Loose Teeth” Friends enjoyed this poem about a child
who, while eating ice cream, bites down on a walnut and
loses a tooth. We looked at the word down and talked
about the ow part. Then, we looked at how ow sounds in
words like snow vs. brown. We read this poem as a whole
group, and then individual friends took turns being the
narrator and the main character, Brian. Shared reading is
a great way to help students read with phrasing and
expression—plus have fun!
Writing Workshop
Math
We began writing All About books this week and thinking
about: teaching all we know about a topic, planning and
organizing your book by trying to tell it across your
fingers or sketching it before you write and thinking
about your readers’ questions as you write.
Continued work with “Organizing & Collecting”. This week
we re-counted our materials to check the packs of 10 and
loose ones, then thought about how many more loose ones
would be needed to make another pack and then figured
out our new totals. We discussed what might happen if we
changed our 10 packs to 5 packs. Groups worked diligently
with this activity and we had another math congress with
some interesting results.
Notes
Social Emotional Morning
Things your child can do when you read together:
We enjoyed sharing our morning meeting with you. The
children were thrilled to have you here, especially joining
us to play the Number Game.
*Determine what the story could be about by looking at
the front cover, the teaser (if there’s one) and the title.
*Can you tell the season, time of day, or weather by
looking at the illustrations?
*Talk about interesting vocabulary or phrases.
*Is there a problem in the story, is there a solution?
*Describe what characters are like—how do you know?
*Would you want to be a character’s friend? Why?
Math: High Roller using dot dice and polyhedral dice,
Rolling for Tens
ABC: matching singular & plural words, trick words
Poetry: “Loose Teeth”
Also: browsing boxes, write around the room, chart
reading, buddy reading, independent reading.