Happy Friday!

We have had an amazing week!!

Learning About Birds
This week we have been completing research about birds and their adaptations (ways that birds are special to help them survive).  We have practiced reading nonfiction books and taking notes.  Today the kiddos participated in an science experiment where they pretended to be birds and have to use different "beaks" (tweezers, tongs, slotted spoons, and straws) to pick up different "foods" (water, grass in water, rocks in water, sunflower seeds, rice in an egg carton).  We also watched a movie about birds and all their adaptations.

Bird Day Field Trip

All of our learning is to help us prepare for our Bird Day Field Trip on Wednesday, October 12.  For the field trip:

• Please send your child to school is comfortable clothes that will be appropriate for the weather.  At this point, the forecast for Wednesday is 66 degrees and rainy. We are hoping that there is no rain. :)  However, we will arrive at Audubon Park around mid-morning and it will only be 56 degrees. A jacket will probably be a good idea and shoes that allow for easy & comfortable walking.
• Please remember to send your child with a lunch (unless you marked on the slip for a sack school lunch).  The lunch and all containers need to be able to be thrown away.  Please mark your child's Ziploc bag clearly with his/her name.  We will not have coolers for this field trip - so please take that into account when planning your child's lunch.

Nouns & Adjectives

We introduced grammar to the kiddos yesterday by talking about nouns and adjectives.  Today the kiddos chose a noun to share with the class.  Then we had the kiddos complete a noun gallery walk to look at all the nouns.  As they were doing their gallery walk the kiddos wrote down adjectives to describe the nouns.  After they were finished we turned all their adjectives into a word cloud.  Next week, we will be continuing talk about nouns and adjectives at one of our Literacy Stations.

To help bring adjectives to life, we will be having an Adjective Parade at the end of the month.  On October 28 your child can dress up as an adjective.  This is NOT a Halloween costume.  Your child is able to decorate one piece of clothing (hat,  shirt, pants, shoes, dress, etc) as an adjective.  

Costume Rules:

• No masks
• No make-up
• Must be school appropriate
• Student will wear their word during the day

Information came home with your child today in his/her Friday Folder.  Here is a copy of the letter.  Below are some examples! :)

     

Books We Have Read This Year

On Mrs. Ross's blog she has made a tab of all the books that we have read so far this year.  If you would like to check it you can go here!  The kiddos are really into historical fiction books.  If your family has a great book that fits into this category that you wouldn't mind sharing with us that would be great!  We have started to make a Historical Fiction Timeline of all the great books we have read.

Also, I have gotten out my Halloween books and they have been a hit!!!  I love to see how excited the kiddos get about reading!! :)

Junior Achievement

Junior Achievement (JA) is a program where community members come into the classroom to teach 5 lessons on economics.  If you want to learn more you can check out their website!  Mr. McGowin is our JA teachers.  Today was our first day!!  We talked about different jobs that our in community.  We also talked about the difference between a want and a need.  Mr. McGowin has 4 more lessons that he will be teaching us.  Next week the kiddos will be bakers! :)

Next Week:

We have LOTS going on next week!! :)

• Math: We will be continuing to work on skip counting and counting coins
• Reading: We will be working on summarizing books that we have read.  To help kiddos summarize we use a strategy called Somebody, Wanted, But, So, Then.  Using this strategies helps the kiddos to include the important information but not TOO many details.

• Grammar: We will be continuing to work on identifying nouns and using a variety of adjectives to describe them.
• Word Study: Our words next week will be continuing to look at the pattern CVC & CVCe but next week our words will be looking at short and long i.
• Short i Words: stick, gift, thin, swim, rich
• Long i Words: five, life, nine, drive, prize
• Writing: Yay!!! We finished up the beginnings to our small moment story.  We have also identified the 3 BIG events that will happen in our story.  These events will be our middle.  Next week, we will be talking about the importance of adding details to these events as we write the middle to our small moment story.
• Social Studies: We will be continuing our government conversation, by looking at how presidents and other government officials are chosen.  We will be reading two books (Gloria for President and Duck for President) and comparing these books.

Recess Attire

It was definitely CHILLY outside this morning!!  Please remember to send your child in appropriate recess attire for weather.  I know that in Missouri one day it will be hot & the next day it can be cold, so please be checking the weather forecast each day!  With it being fall, it would probably be a good idea for you to send a jacket with your child everyday.  As a reminder, here are what our requirements are for how your child needs to be dressed to go out to recess.

Chicken BBQ

The Chicken BBQ is next weekend!!!  A flyer came home with a sneak peak of some of the items for the Silent Auction.  Please remember to send in your child's baggie to buy BBQ tickets.  A drawing is held every day for kiddos who buy tickets to earn free game tickets.  On Thursday, Vivian was the winner of some game tickets!! 

Have a wonderful weekend!! :)