Hello everyone!
I want to say a HUGE thank you to all of those who sent in extra supplies for the classroom! What a great help it was to have these supplies sent it! Thank you so much! I also want to say thank you to our Room Moms for meeting with me and preparing for the year ahead! It really is going to be a great year!
As we've worked through this first 4 weeks of school, it's hard to believe September is here and that Fall is slowing working it's way toward us! :) We have been so busy not only learning the rules and routines of the classroom, hallways and pretty much everywhere in Murdock, but we have also been learning about each other. Together the kids have worked hard to get to know each other and they really get along well. I'm very proud of all of them. These four weeks have been a period of learning about each other as well as assessing all students. With 6 new students to Murdock, it has taken longer than I expected to assess all students. I'm glad I'm now able to push forward with the knowledge I gained through assessments. All I can say is I have a GREAT group of students who are eager to learn and grow with me! I'm so excited.
Reading groups have been well established and part of our weekly routine. These reading groups are to be completely flexible as the reading levels of the students grow and change as well. I look forward to watch them become stronger and more fluent readers.
During math, we have been learning the many strategies available for adding numbers. We do this through a variety of manipulatives and various resources. The students are gaining a foundation necessary for me to build upon. As much as it may seem easy, please be assured that in order to run, we all had to crawl and walk first, so I need to make sure all students have gained the knowledge of number sense and the strategies taught before I can make them all "run" with addition. Subtraction is around the corner! (OH, if you have not sent in the chapters to the math book, please send them in now.) We will continue with addition, subtraction, numbers and patterns, graphing concepts, fact families, place value and well as greater than, less than and equal to. PHEW!!!! I think I covered it all! These concepts will be taught throughout the next few months.
During Language Arts and Writing we continue to focus on short and long vowels, making sense of tricky vowel pairs and combinations as well as focusing on capital letters, proper punctuation and ways to stretch our BORING sentences into BIGGER and BOLDER ones! We also continue to work on topic sentences, details and our conclusion.
Science continues to focus on weather, seasons and The Water Cycle and Social Studies will begin with our first historical figure: Benjamin Franklin!
Dates to remember:
Sat. 9/10 EAST COBBER PARADE!!!
Fri. 9/16 Progress Reports go home. Spirit Day: Dress with Murdock pride!!!
Tues. 9/20 MESF Pizza Night
Fri. 9/23 1st day of Autumn!!!! YES!!! Spirit Day: Dress with Murdock pride!!!
Fri. 9/23 Collection of apples from the entire class. I'm asking for ONE apple per student. I plan on making applesauce on Tuesday with the children, so if I can have ONE RED APPLE by 9/23, we'll be good to go on Tuesday! (PLEASE....NO GREEN apples.)
Wed. 9/28 Fall Picture Day! Wear your biggest SMILE!!!
That's it for now! Enjoy the rest of September as October creeps upon us!
Mrs. Kastner
