Baker Buzz

September 14-18, 2015

Important Dates:

·  September 15: Hodges/GSI Family Picnic 6 p.m

·  September 15: Good News Club begins (if you signed up)

·  September 16: Early Release Day (dismissal at 11:30 a.m.)

·  September 23: Progress Reports/Interims come home!

·  September 25: September Birthday Lunch

Shoe-tying: We have a new poster in our room for those who can tie their shoes! Be sure to practice at home so we can fill our poster with names! J / Reading Incentive: About 2 weeks ago, Mrs. Spires (librarian) sent home a 2 page packet for the reading incentive. It was a white explanation sheet plus a pink reading bingo card. Those were passed out in library directly to the kids and went straight into bookbags, but may have gotten lost. If you need another copy, please let me know!
Breakfast: Please remember that breakfast is free to those who are present by 7:35 in the morning. We usually take the breakfast count before we even leave the gym and drop it off on the way by. The goal is to get everyone fed before the 7:50 tardy time… so even if you drop off out back before the gate closes at 7:45, it still might be too late for breakfast. We’re having some come in after 7:35 asking for breakfast, and it creates a problem if we didn’t order for him/her. We enjoy breakfast in the classroom but please make sure to be here by 7:35 to receive it. Thanks for understanding!

This week…

·  As readers, we will continue to share a book called Ollie the Stomper. Ollie is a duck who is following his friends Gossie and Gertie because they have boots and he doesn’t. Ollie keeps stomping his feet. They finally each give him a boot, but then he decides the boot is too hot! We enjoyed working on some word solving skills last week and we will dive deeper into the book with a comprehension focus this week. We will also work with word families and begin working with beginning blends. We will be beginning guided reading groups on Tuesday! J In reading workshop, today we practiced scooping up words like ice cream instead of robot reading. Ask your child to demonstrate! J We will also work on dropping bad habits and picking up good habits this week, as well as looking at all parts of words!

·  As word-solvers, this week we will begin working with some of our high frequency words. We will have a class set of 5 words to work on this week. Over the last couple weeks, Mrs. Baker has been working to assess students on the top 75-100 high frequency words – each child has their own master list, so I know exactly who needs which words. The 5 we chose as a class were common words that almost all students in the class needed. The class set of words is part of a process. We do plan to begin Buddy Study Spelling sometime in mid-October. Buddy Study will provide spelling buddies who will work with each other to practice individual spelling words (chosen for each student based on their own master list). Buddy Study requires some independence and requires some practiced routines before we are able to get started. Our plan is to work on a class set of words each week for about a month, as we tackle these routines (magnetic letter work, making connections between words, and other strategies). Once we feel we’re at a good spot where we can get the most quality out of our time, we’ll begin Buddy Study. Throughout the year, now and later on, we will have a set class time for studying these words, a practice to be completed each night, and a spelling quiz on Friday. At this time, our words are high-frequency words – the words each child will see most often in his/her reading and writing. Learning to read and write these words is imperative!

·  As writers, we are elaborating up a storm. This week we will work on adding drama to our writing (should be no trouble, haha!), using familiar words to spell new words, and try our hand at editing a little bit with capital letters and end marks!

·  As mathematicians, we will wrap up place value this week for right now. We will work on grouping tens (now that we have a pretty good handle on counting tens) and leftovers. We will have our first math assessment on this on Friday!

·  As social scientists, we will move our study into learning about the northwest and the southwest. J