New Adventures in SK P217!

Hello good families of SK friends!

We are delighted to warmly welcome Ms. Schwartz to our SK team, and to our classroom.  She will be with us while our friend Mrs. Linzmeier rests and works on feeling better at home.



Ask your SK friend about:

Daily Five

Another round of building stamina - we've reached 17 minutes of independent focused productive work!  We are u  p to all five (the Daily Five!), including Read to Self, Read to Someone, Listen to Reading, Word Work and Work on Writing.  We've also teamed up with our 3rd Grade Buddies, to meet each A Day for 15 minutes of Read to Someone.  What fun to have them read to us, and to read to them too!

Language

Journaling - writing descriptive scrapbook pages detailing our eventful trip to the Pumpkin Patch!  We are using Upper Case, Finger Space, Ending Punctuation, and thinking about our topic, while writing two sentences that go together.
Printing - adding D and d to our letter we can write the SK Way, and practicing the whole kit and caboodle so far (L, I, T, A, O, l, i, t, a, o)
Describing words - writing as much information as we could to describe our pumpkins (tall, short, skinny, wide, bumpy, scratchy, smooth... the list goes on!)
Word Families - exciting news!  We began with the "-am" family and added the "-at" family!  When you can read "am" and "at", and when you know your letter sounds, you can read SO MANY words!  We do a cheer here in SK: "Am, am, am, put on a "r" and you've got ram!  Ram, ram, ram, take off the "r" and you've got am!"  Try it with am and at, with your SK friend.

Math

Spinners - probability and bar graphs (charting which pieces of the Pumpkin Pie spinner we landed on, and growing our bar graphs!  Which columns are equal?  Which columns are more or fewer?  How many more pieces of pie until that column reaches the top?  Thrilling stuff!)
Counting - with movement, incorporating action into rote counting games
Patterns - in our classroom, and our school... they're everywhere!  Hunt for your own at home or out in the world

Science

Pumpkins!  We began exploring our new unit with a story about Jonathan and the seed (what could it be?) and then charted a KWL (What do I know, what do I wonder, what do I want to learn?)  We want to know more about the stems, the vines, the colors of pumpkins, how big they can get, if the size and the weight of a pumpkin go together, what parts of the pumpkin you can eat, and loads more!
Field Trip - we headed to Barthel Fruit Farm (thank you, kind and flexible volunteers!) to gather information, and our pumpkins for research!
Research - we've begun measuring our pumpkin's height (how tall?) and circumference (how far around?), and can't wait to check out if it sinks or floats!  Together if your SKer, see if you can find out how much your pumpkin weighs, and something that weighs about the same!

Books We Loved

When The Leaf Blew In by Steve Metzger
Lionel In the Fall by Stephen Krensky
Patty's Pumpkin Patch by Teri Sloat
It's Pumpkin Time by Zoe Hall

Reminders

Monday - no school, while teachers have an inservice here at USM.  Look for patterns, find fun ways to count, hunt for fall colors, describe the pumpkins you see in your neighborhood!
Coats - every day!
Tote bags - every day!
Toys - not at school, please.  One snuggly friend left in the sleeping bag for rest time works well.
Friday Folders - remind SK friends that their job is to pop it in the box on their way in on Duffey!

Coming Up

We have much more to explore in the world of pumpkins!  Language, math and science converge to learn more about descriptive writing, measurement and the life cycle of a plant.