Career Day

Updates

I hope everyone had a great weekend. We have been very busy in class working on daily five and reading groups. See previous post for more information on the daily five. Students will soon be bringing books home from our guided reading groups. These will need to be returned daily. Please make sure to be practicing sight words. I will be sending home a list that our grade level has worked on broken down by quarters. We have been reading fiction and non fiction books to compare the different elements. In science we have been working on properties and will finish up with this unit on Thursday with a pumpkin exploration. You can see from the pictures below that the students are actively engaged in our fall exploration using tools that scientists use. We read, discussed and wrote about what science is. In math we are still working with ten frames, ten sticks, and counting on to develop addition strategies. This week we had two students lead us in our math routines. They did a great job. I hope to have everyone be a math student leader.

Homework

We have started the homework packet one week early so that way students will not have homework the week of Thanksgiving.

Boo-Grams Send your Friends a Halloween Treat

Boo-Grams Send your Friends a Halloween Treat Look what the Student Council is up to! Which friends will you send a Boo-Gram to? October 28-October 31 students will be able to purchase Boo-Grams for 25 cents each in the morning from 8:45-9:15am either at a table in the upstairs 4-5 hallway or at a table in the main hallway for K-3 students

•Family Fun Fitness Night

Starts: 6:30 pm Ends: November 14, 2013 - 8:00 pm Location: BRES Multi-Purpose Room Description: This is a special event held in the gymnasium where we will be promoting a fun, safe and healthy lifestyle for the whole family. There will be plenty of FREE activities for all ages, door prizes, live demonstrations and more. We will also collect canned food at the door to help benefit families of BRES student’s and the Food Pantry of Fuquay-Varina.

Barnes and Noble Spirit Night

Our Barnes & Noble Book Fair is quickly approaching! It will be held on Thursday, November 7th at the Barnes & Noble store at Cary Towne Center! We have a great night planned! The Banks Boomers will be performing. A mystery reader will be hosting story time! The PTA will be selling BRES spirit wear and the Yearbook Club will open yearbook sales that night!

Important Dates

- Tuesday October 29th -Parents are connected reading night. - Thursday, October 31st- Book-It! due for the month of October. - Thursday, November 7th- Barnes and Noble Book Fair in Cary - Friday, November 8th- Early Release! School is dismissed at 1:15 - Monday, November 11th- Veteran’s Day- No School! - Thursday, November 14th- Fitness Night for PTA - Thursday, November 28th- Thanksgiving- No School! - Friday, November 29th- No School! - Wednesday, December 4th- Track out day

Introducing the Daily 5

For the past few weeks, I have been slowly introducing our Daily 5 reading structure to the students. Not familiar with the Daily 5? The Daily 5 is a structure that allows students to work on 5 components that will contribute mastering the end of year goal of reading on a level D. They include: -Word Work Students work in various ways with our sight words to help them improve their sight word mastery. Sight words (high frequency words) are common words that are found in the majority of texts. In order to master the end of the year goal of reading on a level D, students should be able to identify around 30-35 sight words by the end of the year. -Writing Students use their understanding of letters/sounds to create pieces of writing and convey their ideas. Generally, the writing prompts in this center are reflective of the writing genre we are currently learning about. For example, if we are working on opinion writing, then the activities in the writing center will ask them to share their opinion about a topic (Would you rather have a pet horse or a pet pig?) Again, the more a student uses their understanding of letters/sounds to create a pice of writing, the more likely they will be to master the end of the year reading goal of reading on a level D. -Listen to Reading Did you know that when a child listens to fluent reading, that it actually helps with their own reading? Well, that's where listen to reading comes in. In this center, students listen to a story on CD or tape (remember them, lol?) fluently and with expression. So, hearing a person read fluently/with expression will help the kiddos understand how their reading should sound when they are reading. Again, this supports the end of the year goal of students reading on a level D. -Read to self/Read to someone You know the saying, practice makes perfect. The more you read, the better they will get. At this center, the kids will have the opportunity to use their strategies such as using the picture/first letter of a word to determine unknown words, sounding out unknown words, opportunities to see (and master) sight words, etc... -Reading with the Teacher In this group, students will be pulled to work with me in small groups based on their reading needs for more strategic intervention. As you can see, all of these centers are geared towards making the most of your child's time during our literacy block. The goal being having all the students reading on a level D by the end of the year

October Happenings

We had a great first week back. I would like to welcome Mrs. Anderson to our class. She is our new teacher assistant that will help support Kindergarten and 1st grade track 1. Mrs. Rodger will still be working between both track 1 classrooms. We are very excited to have her. A big thank you goes out to Mrs. Wood (Lillie's mom) for putting together the basket for the fall festival. She did a great job for those NC State fans. Dates to remember: October 8th picture retakes, Election Day PTA spirit night at buffalo lanes in Garner October 11th Field Trip October 15th JDRF Walk October 16th Sports Team Day October 17th Crazy sock day October 18th School Spirit, Early release In Math we will be working on the following standards: -K.CC.3 Write numbers from 0 to 20. Represent a number of objects with a written numeral 0-20 (with 0 representing a count of no objects). -K.CC.4 Understand the relationship between numbers and quantities; connect counting to cardinality. a. When counting objects, say the number names in the standard order, pairing each object with one and only one number name and each number name with one and only one object. b. Understand that the last number name said tells the number of objects counted. The number of objects is the same regardless of their arrangement or the order in which they were counted. c. Understand that each successive number name refers to a quantity that is one larger. -K.CC.5 Count to answer "how many?" questions about as many as 20 things arranged in a line, a rectangular array, or a circle, or as many as 10 things in a scattered configuration; given a number from 1-20, count out that many objects. -K.CC.6 Identify whether the number of objects in one group is greater than, less than, or equal to the number of objects in another group, e.g., by using matching and counting strategies. -K.OA.1 Represent addition and subtraction with objects, fingers, mental images, drawings, sounds (eg. claps), acting out situations, verbal explanations, expressions, or equations. During our Letterland time we have been learning how to blend sounds together to make words. We have also begun working in our Daily 5 Reading Centers in the afternoon.