New Groups for Next Week!

Reading/ Fundations Group Work

Math Group Work

	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday
9:30- 10:00am	Alex Henry Caroline Zoe Alectra	Lyvia Madison Leo Ray Sabine	Alex Henry Caroline Zoe Alectra
10:00- 10:30am	Clementine Winona Nora Y. Arsenie Jr. Nora P.	Clementine Winona Norah Y. Arsenie Jr. Nora P.	Lyvia Madison Leo Ray Sabine
10:30- 11:00am	Camille Joey Hannah Violet Roman	Camille Joey Hannah Violet Roman

Hi Everyone!  Happy Friday!  I continue to enjoy our group work sessions, but as promised, I want to provide the children the opportunity to work with a variety of their peers.  So I have changed up the groups for our next three weeks of sessions.  I have included the new schedule for our groups in the table above.  I will also be sending email invitations for these sessions that will include the Google Hangout link for you to access.  Please let me know if you have any questions!

Thank you again for supporting your child with these hangouts.  I appreciate that so many of you are nearby if there are technical difficulties.  A couple of children have mentioned that it can be hard to hear during our hangout sessions.  Just a reminder that any background noise (conversations,etc) around your child is heard by everyone in the group.  So I may be asking the children to mute their microphones more often and then turn it back on when it is their turn to share or answer a question.  Just wanted to give a heads up so you can help your child figure out the microphone/mute button independently!  Thanks so much!

This week in our groups we continued to practice digraphs.  This time we were listening to words and trying to the identify the digraph found at the beginning or ending or a word through a bingo game and we worked on building words with digraphs.  In math, we did a review of subtraction.  We talked about subtraction means taking away and that you could also say subtract and minus and all those words mean the same thing!  We did some subtraction practice with counters and then played a fun subtraction race game together, solving and writing subtraction equations.  Everyone did a great job solving subtraction equations!  

Happy Mother's Day to all the moms!  Wishing you a wonderful day!

Drawn Together!

We had some great art and writing collaborations this week!  Thanks to all our of friends who sent me their work!

Happy May!

Welcome to the month of May!  It's hard to believe that it's already May and that we have all been at home for over 45 days! I really look forward to the times when we can all see each other in person again!

It was great to meet all the children again this week in our small groups!  During our Literacy small groups, we were introduced to two more digraphs.  Digraphs are two letters that make one sound. This week's digraphs were th and ck.  See if your child can find any words with digraphs when he or she is reading to you!  In math, we continued to work on solving story word problems that the children created.  Some even made subtraction problems...which is great!  That is the next area we are going to spend some time on in our math groups: solving subtraction problems and writing subtraction equations. 

I want to thank you all again for your continued support in this remote learning process.  I felt like our groups went more smoothly this week as everyone came with a pencil and paper or something to write with and on.  For this upcoming week, I am asking that your child bring 12 counters to his or her math lesson, as well as, paper and a pencil.  We are going to be practicing subtraction and manipulatives are helpful.  Examples of something to count include small blocks, marbles, paperclips, crayons, checkers, pennies, buttons, popsicle sticks, beads, cotton balls, etc.

As always, feel free to reach out to me with any questions or concerns!  Be sure to check the Remote Learning Site on Monday morning for next week's activities.  Have a wonderful weekend!  It looks there will be some sun...so I hope you all can get outside!

Misunderstood Shark....Animal Facts!

Wow!  I learned a lot about animals this week!  Thanks to all the friends who completed the assignment and shared their writing with me.  Check out our work below!

Happy Friday!

We made it through our first real week of remote learning! Thank you all very much for helping your child to navigate this new world of Google Hangouts, videos, and assignments.  I realize the amount of work this takes to help facilitate the learning going on in your home and I am very grateful for your support, time, and efforts.  So...thank you again!  It was wonderful to meet with the children in small groups this week!  It really gives me a chance to get to work with them and gives them the opportunity to connect with each other.  We are off to a great start!  That being said, please note that next week is our Spring Vacation.  There will not be a new checklist of work on the Remote Learning Site and I will not be holding small groups next week.  However, I will be hosting my Story Time and Snack Time at 9:30am on April 24th, per the usual schedule.

For those families not listening in on our small group work this week, I will share what we covered.  In literacy, we did a review of letters and sounds and sight words.  We also practiced tapping out short words and writing down the sounds we heard.  I tried my best to remind the children that we are practicing writing words with lowercase letters and that when we write sentences, the first letter is capitalized and there is punctuation at the end.  In math, we did some quick ten-frame number review (counting the dots in the ten frame efficiently) and flashing fingers to show numbers.  We also worked on problem solving, showing thinking with numbers, pictures, and equations! A couple of thoughts regarding our small groups:  Please make sure your child has a paper and something to write with during each session and it is helpful if any toys or stuffies stay off to the side just to avoid any distractions!  Thank you!

I hope that you and your child have time next week to do some fun activities together (that don't necessarily require a computer screen!) and can get outside and enjoy the "vacation", but if you are looking for ideas in order to keep a routine, please visit the Additional Activities section on our Remote Learning Page.  There are some science exploration activities there.  Your child can also access Lexia online at anytime, can read books, or even work on their math practice book pages.

Lastly, please check out our blog as there are a couple of new posts this week.  One post has some stories read on video by one of our 4th grade book buddies.  Have a wonderful week!  I look forward to seeing anyone who wants to join me for Story and Snack on April 24th!  As always, please reach out with any questions or concerns.

I Want to Be...

Thanks to those friends who shared their writing with me!  There were so many great ideas!

Special Guest Reader!

Hi Everyone!  I have a treat for you!  Every Friday this year, our class has visited Ms. Deb's 4th grade class for Book Buddies.  To keep our book buddies going in a different way, one of Ms. Deb's students has recorded two stories for you!  Enjoy!

Annie and the Wild Animals

Paul and Bernadette