Clifford’s Classroom Connection September 19 , 2013

1. Clifford’s Classroom Connection September 19, 2013 Important Notes • Please remember to fill out the reading log each night with your child and send it to school. The reading log is a great way for me to see the reading work your child is doing at home. The time the students spend reading books from their book baggie can count as the 15 minutes of reading they should complete each night. • In addition to the reading log, please initial the yellow “Guided Reading Homework” page in the student’s book baggie. Your initials let me know that the child is practicing his/her guided reading books each night at home. • You can reach me at kclifford@barrington220.org or • 847-756-2770 What We’re Learning! The short week flew by, but we accomplished a great deal! This week was the first week that students rotated to all of the literacy stations. They did a wonderful job for their first week and will continue to improve as they become accustomed to the independence and accountability. We also have guided reading groups up and running. In guided reading, the students work with leveled text in a small group in class and take the books home to practice. I hope you enjoyed listening to your child read books from his/her book baggie! In math, we reviewed number bonds. We pushed our understanding by working with monster bonds (a large bond containing several smaller bonds) and mystery bonds (bonds with shapes representing mystery numbers). The students created number chains and number stories representing different number bonds. The paper chains and stories are now hanging from the ceiling around our room – we are surrounded by math! The students took the chapter 2 math test on Thursday. Next week, we will begin chapter 3 which focuses on addition facts to 10. In writing, we practiced working with a writing partner to expand our stories. We practiced the storytelling process with our partner. The storytelling process includes one partner telling his story, the other partner listening and asking questions about details in the story, and the first partner retelling the story including the details asked by the other partner.We also learned how to read our writing like readers by looking at our pictures before reading, pointing to each word we have written, and stopping to fix mistakes we have found. This revision process will make our stories make sense and be easier to understand. Upcoming Events September 23 – Scholastic Book Orders Due September 24– Ben and Me Assembly at 10:15 September 27 – Weekly Spelling Test