March 10-15

Reading
We are reading Mayday, Mayday. It is a book about a coast guard rescue at sea. Along with it we will be continuing to learn about non-fiction text as well as "main idea". We are focusing on the "main idea" of non-fiction text right now (that is much easier) but please start using the language at home when reading so that your child becomes familiar with "main idea". You can help your child figure out the main idea of fiction stories too, but that is a little trickier to understand. Think of main idea like a moral or lesson in a fiction book.

Phonics
Our word families this week are ap, ip and long a. We are also continuing to learn beginning consonant blends like gr, gl, etc. We are also exploring syllables. What they are (parts of a word) and identifying them in words (clapping them). I am also teaching the students to break words into individual syllables to spell longer sound out words. elephant is easier to spell if you sound out each individual syllable.

Writing
We are writing more non-fiction and will be interviewing our partners and writing about them. Continuing to explore different types of sentences (. ? !) Continuing to learn what a paragraph is.
In writer' workshop the students are learning and participating in the writing process: brainstorming, first draft, editing, revising and publishing. We still need about 14 more cereal boxes big enough to hold paper for the students to make their book boxes. 

Math
Reviewing numbers to 100 and ordering numbers to 100. This week I am introducing math choices too. Similar to daily five only for math. I will spend this week teaching the students the process.

Updates
So, I have finally figured out the best way to safely get videos of your children to you. I gave up on the schooltube site because of difficulty. I now have a regular youtube channel that I am putting videos on. The videos are all unlisted so you can not find them by searching for them. I will be putting the URLs on the blog with a short description so you can view them that way. Here is the first batch I have from our creating last week. Enjoy. Please respond with any comments/concerns about this. Also, if any computer savvy person has an extra 15 minutes a day or so to manage these videos for me and get them to an accessible place I would be all for that. Email me. 
Also, remember our March Madness contest in room 110. Weekly winners go shopping for the most time/progress made on both IXL and Raz-kids. We had a great first week. Congrats to Zadkiel (IXL) and Garrett (Raz-kids)!!!

Jackson working on a world record! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PxjcChQxm-I

Eleanor concentrating on building. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y062GTqifqg

Beno and Jonathan's fire engine. http://youtu.be/RQu1EPQBUwU

Jackson working on his crane. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDCt6srzs2E

Oscar and Zadkiel's fire engine. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7VJphYWVl_s

Samari and Sal's fire engine. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kItbHYm980

Kya and Ryan's "thing that knocks things down" (wrecking ball) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjsIRzbUWuM

Addison and Sara's fire engine. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsqCH-c0Jwk

Ulises and Gabi's train. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BfYfdhk15Y4

Have a wonderful week!
Mr. E