Saturday, February 1, 2020

February Update


Upcoming Dates:
  • Thursday, February 6th-1st/2nd Grade Specials Program:
    • Graham - 6:15-6:45
    • Munson - 7:15-7:45
  • Thursday, February 13th- Classroom Valentine’s Day Parties
  • Friday, February 14th- No School (Professional Development for Teachers)
  • Monday, February 17th- No School Presidents Day
VALENTINE PARTY:We will have our class Valentine party on Thursday, February 13th. Children are welcome to create a Valentine’s Day Box to collect Valentines in. Please make sure that the opening on the box will fit a card with candy attached (if families choose to do that). If your child chooses to make a valentine for students in our class, please make sure that you bring one valentine for every student in the class. A class list will be sent home. Please also be on the lookout for a party SignUp.
1st and 2nd Grade Specials Program:
At Gold Rush Elementary we believe that the arts serve an essential role in helping Our 1st and 2nd Grade Specials Showcase is a way to highlight some of the important learning happening in their specials classes. Each year at GRE the first and second grade students explore a theme during their Art, Music and PE classes and then have the opportunity to share their learning with parents and invited guests. Each performance will last about 30 minutes



Please look for your child's class above and save the date and time. Since there will be two different performances on each night, parents and students are asked to arrive only 15 minutes prior to the performance.

CURRICULUM UPDATE
READING:
In this next reading unit, a major focus is on reading fluency as they encounter longer texts. Students will focus on reading in phrases with appropriate expression, at a just right pace. Students will also pay attention to literary language in texts. They will notice when an author plays with words or uses comparisons. We will explore some poetry as we dig into literary language. As students encounter longer texts, it is important that they “hold on” to the different parts of the text so they are able to understand the book as a whole. Continuing to jot thoughts down on sticky notes, sharing ideas with a partner, and rereading are critical reading behaviors. Students will continue to set goals and monitor those goals.

     

We conclude this unit by launching Book Clubs. Students will understand club member behaviors. They will create a plan, set goals and work together to accomplish their goals.



WRITING:
We are now moving into Narrative Writing. During this unit students will write short stories based on true events from their lives. By the end of the unit students will be able to:
  • Discover small moments that matter-generating ideas
  • Tiny Topics- using a notebook to remember topics for writing
  • Stretching out small moments- learning to plan a story by touching each page and saying what they will write
  • Writing a good beginning, middle and end
  • Writing with detail: Magnifying a small moment
  • Bringing characters to life by using talk, feel or actions
  • Setting goals and making plans for writing time
  • Using checklist to self assess and plan for next parts
  • Close Reading: Looking closely at how mentor authors write and trying it
  • Collaborate a partner to help make a story better (revise by listening)
  • Word choice
  • Revising and editing rough drafts
  • Conventions are a big emphasis:
    • Capital at the beginning of each sentence, for the word ‘I’, and proper nouns
    • Punctuation at the end of each sentence
    • Quotation marks when using dialogue
MATH:
We are continuing to learn subtraction strategies, with an emphasis on developing fluency to 100. In addition to subtraction, we will continue to focus on the mathematical practices of precision, making sense of problems and persevering to solve them and constructing viable arguments to explain our mathematical thinking. Over the next few weeks, students will:
  • Subtract one and two digit numbers using models to help them visualize the regrouping concept.
  • Subtract using partial differences
  • Solve one and two-step subtraction problems.
Please continue to review your child’s daily math worksheets and practice fact fluency using the flash cards that were sent home last fall.

HELPING YOUR CHILD WITH MATH

SCIENCE:
In science, we will begin our unit on weather. During this unit, students will:
  • Conducting weather experiments
  • Observing changes in weather over time
  • Becoming familiar with instruments meteorologists use to monitor weather conditions
  • Exploring the various types of clouds and the the weather they bring
  • Gaining an understanding of the water cycle
  • Gaining an understanding of how weather and changing seasons impact people, animals, and plants
  • Gathering and analyzing data on the weather in different locations and in different seasons
  • Analyzing the ways severe weather contributes to catastrophic events (floods, wildfires, etc.)