Clifford’s Classroom Connection October 4, 2013

1. Clifford’s Classroom Connection October 4, 2013 Important Notes • It is important that the students complete and turn in their homework each day. The homework activities are an excellent opportunity for your child to practice the skills we are working on in class. I have listed a typical week’s homework schedule on the back of this newsletter. Please let me know if you have any questions. • The time your child spends reading books out of his “book baggie” can count for his/her 15 minutes of reading a night. • You can place your Scholastic Book Order online or send it in with your child. If you want to place your order online, please follow the link on my webpage! • You can reach me at kclifford@barrington220.org or 847-756-2770 What We’re Learning! In writing, we are continuing to learn ways to bring our stories to life. This week we focused on telling our stories in small steps and bringing the “inside” of our characters out by including their thoughts and feelings. We are also learning strategies to help plan our stories including using our hand to tell our stories across our fingers and acting out our stories to add in parts we missed. In math we talked about “turn around” facts. We learned 4+3 is the same as 3+4 because in addition, the order of the parts does not matter. We practiced writing number sentences using the plus and equal signs. We also wrote our own addition stories using pictures, storybooks, and stickers. Next week, we will continue our study of addition facts to ten by solving real-world addition problems. We will review Chapter 3 on Thursday and take the Chapter 3 test on Friday. In science we started our study of weather. We learned how to write a scientific journal entry about the weather. We also made our own personal thermometer models that we will use each morning to record the outside temperature. We began our study of the types of clouds – cirrus, cumulus, and stratus. We will continue our study of clouds next week! In Second Step, we learned about self-talk. Self-talk is when you talk to yourself quietly or in your head in order to focus on a task. Students can use self-task to ignore distractions, focus on work, and remember directions. Upcoming Events October 8 – Picture Day Order Forms Due October 10 – Picture Day October 10 – Happy Birthday, Kaycie! October 11 – Chapter 3 Math Test October 11 – Weekly Spelling Test