• Spelling for the Week of May 14-21st

  Please note:  The test will be taken on Monday, May 21st.  Our last spelling test will be on May 25th.

   

  Salli’s List:

  listb22_WQMNR

   

  Tammy’s List:

   

  listc24_WQRBW

   

  Mary’s List:

  listd18_WDWDR

• Spelling Lists: Week of May 7-14th

  Please note:  Due to the upcoming field trip, the spelling test will be taken on Monday, May 14th.

  Salli’s Spelling Group:

  listb19_WQMMM

   

  Tammy’s Spelling Group:

  listc23_WQRBM-1

   

  Mary’s Spelling Group:

  listd23_WDWQN

• Week of May 1, 2012

  Calendar

  May 4: 1/2 Day for teacher professional development

  May 10: Third graders visit 4-5

  May 11: Trip to Hudson Mills Metropark

  May 14 and 21 Spelling tests on two consecutive Mondays to make up for busy Fridays

  May 18: Curriculum Celebration

  May 22: Spring Performance

  A Call for Parent Volunteers

  While we are working on our research projects we will need a few parents to come in and help us with our typing.  If there are a couple of parents out there who could spare an afternoon on the next two Wednesdays  (5-9 or 5-15) to help us type our fabulous reports and poems please send me an email!  Our times are from 1:00 until the end of the day.

  Also,  we have a fantastic gardening project underway thanks to Christine Billick, aka Anneka’s mom, and some other parent volunteers.  If you have some time to spare and don’t mind getting a little messy please contact Christine.

  Lost and Found

  Many things are filling the racks in the lost and found department (outside the gym and cafetorium).  If you have some time check for missing boots, jackets, and gloves.

  Research Project

  Our research project requires each student to choose an animal that they are interested in and learn as much as they can.  So far your children have done a fantastic job of locating information, with the help of Marion our Librarian, taking notes about their critters, and using their critters in an art project with Lindsay.

  During that process we have been learning the difference between mammals, amphibians, reptiles, fish, and birds.  We are also discovering what it means to be an invertebrate. Our next step is to write what we know about our animals in report form.  This will bring together many of the skills we have been practicing this year as writers.

  As mathematicians, we have been graphing information about the animals in the class and will continue showing off our math skills with story problems about the critters.

  All of these fabulous pieces will come together for you to see at the Curriculum Celebration.

   

• Spelling Lists for the week of April 30th -May 4th

  Salli’s List:

  listb18_WQMMB

  Mary’s List:

  listd22_WDWQD

  Tammy’s List:

  listc22_WQRBD

• April 23, 2012

  Calendar Events

  From what I understand, Honey Creek’s Earth Day Celebration will be rescheduled.  I’ll let you know when I know.

  • April 27^th: Half day-dismissal is at 12:00
  • May 4^th: Half day-dismissal is at 12:00 (two consecutive Fridays)
  • May 11^th: Field Trip to Hudson Mills Metropark
  • May 18th Curriculum Celebration
  • May 22^nd: Spring Concert (It’s on a TUESDAY this year!)

  Research/Science/Writing

  We’re researching our animals for projects.  Students are going to learn about their animal’s habitat which covers food, water, shelter, and space. We’ll learn about special adaptations that our animals have to help them survive,  .  Our tools are a research packet with questions that we will need to answer, books, and Internet research using our own Honey Creek Media Center website (Thanks Marion and Dianne!).  After researching, students will use the information they found to write a report about the animal.

  Math

  This week in math third graders are continuing to study fractions while solving written problems with multi-step directions.  Second graders are working in different areas depending on their needs.  Some students are practicing telling time, some second graders are continuing to add and subtract while regrouping (trading and borrowing), and some of the second graders are beginning to work with multiplication facts.

  Reading

  Sadly, we’ve been unable to read with our pre-school buddies for the past two Tuesdays but are looking forward to next Tuesday.

  Our daily five is a beautiful thing to see these days!  Students are reading to each other, reading independently, talking about what they read, working with words, and writing.  There are many times during the week that I have to be stern with children to get them to put their books away.  It’s a beautiful problem to have!

  Thanks!

  In case we forget to tell our families, thank you for all you do to help us be successful here at school!

   

January 9, 2012

Welcome back!

Calendar Events

January 13, 5:00-7:00 Curriculum Celebration.  Our projects will be on display in the A-Wing Centrum

January 16, No school in observance of Martin Luther King Jr. Day

Our Focus This Week

We’ve been hard at work on our projects for Friday.  We have designed our dream playgrounds and will be putting things together, taking pictures, and writing, writing, writing all week.

Spelling words went home today however, the teacher forgot to send homework sheets with them.  Homework sheets will come home tomorrow.  Hopefully that will be our only “re-entry” issue this week.

I hope to see all of you on Friday at the Curriculum Celebration!

December 20, 2011

Day two of a really crazy week!

Calendar Events:

Thursday, December 22:  Full day, New Year Party

Monday, January 9:  Back to school and welcome 2012!

Spelling Words:

Spelling words for the week of January 9th are posted to our website

New Year Party

On Thursday afternoon we have voted to have a party with pizza, ice cream, doughnuts, pajamas, stuffed animals, and a movie.  I told the class that it will be a G rated movie and not Spider Man or Indiana Jones.  There was some grumbling but we will still have a great time.  I should have asked earlier but if anyone is able to and would like to contribute some pizza toppings, or ice cream toppings please let me know.

Tokens:

We have had a 100 token challenge going on in here for about two weeks.  Each student starts every day with 100 tokens, at the end of the day they get to keep whatever they have left and if they keep all 100 tokens all day I double it!  We’re using this to help us break our bad habits like blurting out.  Needless to say our students have earned A LOT of tokens.  Some of them have used their new wealth to purchase lunch with a teacher which means they bring their own lunch to one of the classrooms to eat with Tammy, Salli, and I.  After we all eat we have a delicious dessert provided by the teachers.

We have also been really interested in the idea of getting a new guinea pig.  We love the idea of using our tokens (good behavior) to “purchase” a guinea pig.  We decided that it should take about 8500 tokens to purchase a new pet and that it should be a class effort.  In the real world we know that we can’t even get a cup of coffee for our tokens.

Projects:

We are actually doing academics too!  We have been hard at work building our projects and working on some non-fiction writing to inform our readers about the project.  We’re using what we’ve learned about perimeter and area to measure our projects and we are having a good time putting them together.  We can’t wait for everyone to see them at the Curriculum Celebration in January!

December 12, 2011

Calendar Events:

December 15th: Craft Sale and Musical Performance.  Students will need money that day if they would like to purchase anything                                  from the craft sale

December 16th:  This Friday is our last spelling test until January.  There will be no homework that last week of school.

December 22nd: Last FULL day of school before winter break.  That will be a FULL day and our class will plan something fun so                                  look for an email from us.

January 9th, 2012:  School resumes!!!!

Independence!

We are so lucky here at Honey Creek, students get to ride to school and home with their parents (or carpool) and parents can stop by to peek in, get a quick good bye, or  help out in the class.  I really mean that and I do not want to discourage parents from coming in to do those things.   However, it’s that time of year when we need to start building our student’s independence.

Children who aren’t used to taking care of their own things are having some issues with consequences like losing their supplies or using their hard earned tokens to “pay” to replace their supplies, paying token “fines” when they don’t put their things away and the teacher has to, or just not being able to keep track of the important stuff.

It will help us in the classroom a great deal if you can remind your child that they have to carry their own things in to school and put their things away.  Even if it means that they take a little longer at first or forget something important once in a while.  Sometimes those “natural consequences” are great learning tools!

Reading and Writing

We are exploring the text features of non-fiction.  We are looking at things like titles, headings, table of contents, and captions to help us understand what we read.  We will use that information to write about our projects for the Curriculum Celebrations in January.

Math

We are working with inches and centimeters to find the perimeter of objects in the room.  We’re testing the waters when it comes to area but we just aren’t quite there yet.

Social Studies and Science

We have listed and planned and will begin construction on our projects tomorrow!  We might need some parent help next week, if so I’ll send an email with days and times.

Have a fantastic week!

December 5, 2011

Calendar Events:

December is a busy month!

December 12:  Scholastic book order is due.  We use the “points” earned to purchase books for our 2-3 classrooms.   We are also happy to keep any purchases a secret if necessary!

December 12:  We have learned to thread a needle and make a knot!  It wasn’t easy and there was a lot of frustration but it was worth it!  We are using our new skills to make a craft for the craft sale later this month.  If you have a good sense of humor and a LOT of patience you should come in on Monday to help us create!  We’ll be working from 9:00 until 10:00 on our creations.

December 15:  Our annual Craft Sale, during the school day,  and our Winter Concert, immediately following school

Week of December 19:  We will not have homework, spelling groups, or math groups this week

Math

We are working hard on measurement and are moving into measuring area and perimeter.  I tell students that the perimeter of an object is like a fence built around a playground.  Area is like the space inside the fence.  That explanation seems to make things very clear for us and gives us a concrete example to work with.  Ask your child what they know about area and perimeter this week.

Reading and Writing

We are becoming VORACIOUS readers, well most of the time.  We have learned to ask questions while we read and we are fantastic at re-telling what we’ve read.  This week we have been working on writing a summary of what we’ve read.  We’re using The People of Sparks to help us learn this skill.  After reading a few pages I stop and ask the class to write a sentence, with a noun and a verb, telling who and what.  They’re really getting the hang of it and enjoy sharing what they’ve written the next day to help us remember where we are in the story.

Social Studies/Science

We are in the planning stages of our playground projects and will begin construction next week, if all goes as planned.  Students will brainstorm and sketch their projects this week.  Students will be asked to remember that we share our playground with students from Gretchen’s House and High Point.

November 28, 2011

Welcome Back!  I hope everyone had a delicious and relaxing weekend filled with fun!

Thank You!

Thank you to all of the parents who sent in supplies and/or were able to come in and help us celebrate on Wednesday!  A great time was had by all.  I was explaining this “activity” to my siblings and they were amazed that we are able to have this kind of activity at our school.  When I explained that we had finished our book and tied in social studies, math, reading, and team building skills they were impressed by what we can accomplish at Honey Creek!

Reading and Writing

This week we will be doing some non-fiction reading about communities.  Our students will  tap into their prior knowledge to make connections as well as using text features to help them understand what we read.  We will also use the comprehension strategy, questioning, to help us understand what we are reading as well.  It is a strategy that they have seen me use during our read aloud.

Our reading and writing stamina have improved a great deal since the beginning of the year.  Most of us are able to read independently for 25 to 30 minutes.  It is a little more difficult to sustain that kind of stamina while writing but we are continuing to work on it.

Math

While cooking over the last couple of weeks we have really practiced measurement and, our students were surprised to discover, FRACTIONS!  We are also working on accurately measuring things with inches, feet, and yards.  Last week we were all over the building measuring distances from one place to another.

Have a great week!

November 21, 2011

Today was a sad day in our class.  Our pet guinea pig, Shadow, passed away after a long, happy life.  We consoled each other with stories, pictures and good thoughts about Shadow.  We will miss him.

Calendar Events

No homework or spelling this week!  Last Friday, our homework sheets and spelling words went home but there will not be a spelling test this week and there is no homework due.  Save those two items for next week.

Tomorrow is Pie Day in our class.  We will be making pumpkin pies for our feast on Wednesday.

Wednesday, we will be making homemade tomato soup and comparing it to pre-packaged soup.  Our feast will take place with the classic combination; tomato soup, grilled cheese, and pumpkin pie.

November 24th and 25th: No School

Math

We are hard working mathematicians!  We’ve been working with measuring cups and spoons, the result of which were some delicious banana muffins.  We are practicing with inches, feet, and yards.  Today we played a measurement game and ended up with a measuring tape so of course we measured around the building.  We will turn our measuring tapes over and put centimeters on the other side and do some comparison measurements.  Work, work, work…

Reading

Our reading stamina has improved a great deal.  We are able to maintain a quiet reading time for at least 30 minutes each day.  Some of us read the entire time while others rotate between reading and working on phonics or reading comprehension.

We’ve started reading The People of Sparks, the sequel to The City of Ember.  It is interesting to see the contrast between the community underground and the community above ground.  Both communities have been challenged by the Disaster which we discovered today was caused by the four wars and the three plagues.  The two groups of people are discovering things about each other as the people of Sparks are helping the people of Ember survive.

November 14, 2011

Calendar Events

Monday, November 14 Guest speakers to help us look at the playground and understand why structures, ground cover, plants, and landforms are the way they are.

Clothing and Outdoor Gear

This time of the year the temperature can change from hour-to-hour (or moment-to-moment), it is Michigan after all.  We have a very descriptive display in the hall near the lockers that helps students understand the temperature and what they need to wear to be comfortable and safe outside.  It even includes a read-out of the outdoor temperature!  Please help your child come to school prepared for the coldest temperature of the day but layered so that they can adjust as necessary later on.   They will find recess much more enjoyable.

Social Studies/Science

We have been learning a lot about our Honey Creek community.   The 2-3 classes invited Shellee to visit so that we could learn about our school’s history and ask her questions about the growth of Honey Creek.  We learned that our school has grown from about 30 students to about 238 students!

Megan Minnock, a Honey Creek parent and urban planner, came in to help all of us learn more about maps and what makes a good map.  During her visit, we learned that a good map has a title, a compass rose, boundaries, a scale, and a key or legend.  It was exciting to make maps of our playground and to be able to design our own symbols for the key.

This week, we will have visitors once again.  This time we will learn about why the playground is built the way it is.  Why do we have the structures, ground cover, plants, landforms, and features that our playground has?  After this, we will be able to think about some important questions about our community.  How does this playground fit the needs of Honey Creek’s growing population as well as the needs of our High Point friends and our Gretchen’s House friends?

Math

In our class we are working on operations; primarily addition, subtraction, multiplication as well as measurement.  We have been using rulers to measure in inches and centimeters.  We will also be using recipes to measure while cooking.

In our three math groups students are working on getting those foundation skills that will help them be better mathematicians.

•  If your child is in Tammy’s group they are working on addition strategies–count on, make ten, doubles, and  ___ plus 1.  They are also doing double digit addition with no regrouping and, separately, working with trading ones into groups of ones and tens–37 pennies is 3 dimes and 7 pennies, 21 cubes is 2 rods and 1 cube, etc.
• In Salli’s group students have been working on regrouping double digit numbers for both addition and subtraction.  They have been using the following terms, regroup, trade, borrow and carry, add and subtract, as well as tens and ones.
•  If your child is in Mary’s group they are working on learning, or practicing, multiplication facts through games. They have been learning strategies like skip counting, repeated addition, doubles, and splitting factors. 

Friendship Feast

We have finished our read aloud, The City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau!  The people of Ember survive living underground by eating canned food that was left for them by the Builders and root vegetables that they grow.  Next week we will be using some canned goods to make a “feast” of our own.  Look for information about how you can help us get supplies or assist us in the class.

Have a fantastic week!

October 31, 2011

Calendar Events

November 6th, Fall Back, the time changes back to standard time

November 7th, Our trip to the Ann Arbor Public Library!

November 8th, Salli, Tammy, and Mary will be at Cobo Hall presenting at the MAPSA (Michigan Association of Public School Academies) Conference.  Debi Bailey will be our sub that day.

Candy

Candy is an important topic at this time of year.  We have come to an agreement (because that’s what communities do) that a piece of candy is fine for dessert (dessert, by definition comes after a meal) but makes a lousy healthy snack.  So, everyone is now aware that candy in the classroom is not a good idea.

Conferences

I really enjoyed speaking to everyone at conferences.

• One common interest to come out of conferences was the reading website that we’ve been using in the class, RAZ Kids (raz-kids.com).  Everyone in the room has an account and is able to access this from home as part of their reading homework if they would like.
• Another common topic was choosing books that hold our interest and encourage more reading.  I asked students who were struggling with this to think about what they like about their favorite books; is it about dogs, a mystery, historical fiction, is there a little sister…?  Why they like that book; for some of us it can mean that they like the size of the font, is it scary, are there pictures…?
• One more common question was “How does my child keep track of what is going on in the story?”  We practice using two words, who and what.  Who is in the story and what are they doing.  When we have that under our belts and can ask ourselves those questions fairly independently we move on to other question words.

Monday Math Groups

Our Monday math groups are doing well.  The students are getting used to transitioning between their regular class and the groups and while in the groups are able to work well with a different group of students.  Each group is working on different skills.  Ask your student who their Monday Math Group teacher is and what they are working on.

Read Aloud/Social Studies

Our read aloud, The City of Ember is pretty exciting.  Lina’s sister, Poppy, found an important looking paper in a box but by the time Lina saw her Poppy had already caused  some damage to the page.  Doon is Lina’s friend and the two of them are trying to figure out the meaning of the “Instructions” before it’s too late!

This story takes place in a small community and we are taking a look at this community, comparing it to communities that we’re familiar with, and looking for those similarities.

Have a great week!

October 17, 2011

Second attempt (The computer ate my blog)

Calendar Events

October 18, tomorrow, the third graders take the math portion of the MEAP.

All of our class will swim this Friday instead of Tuesday so that we can all swim together.

November 7th, our first field trip!  We will head out to the Ann Arbor Public Library for a short but informative visit.  Our students will enjoy story-time, learning about  libraries, and tour the Downtown Youth Department.

If you haven’t had time to sign up for a conference yet, check the schedule in the A-wing hall to find a slot!

Math

This morning we divided our students into three groups for math.  We will work in these groups every Monday for 45 minutes to work on specific skills for our students.  We like our students to think of these groups as skill groups and we stress that everyone is working on “what they need to be successful”  and not refer to them as the “low, medium, or high” group.

Science and Social Studies

We were able to make it outside this afternoon to “build” landforms in the sand.  We saw a river delta, mountains, valleys, plains, an island, an isthmus, a peninsula, a canyon, a plateau, and hills.  With such a nice fall afternoon, even Shadow was able to go out with us!

Read Aloud

On Friday we began reading The City of Ember  by Jeanne DuPrau.  It is the story of a community totally lit by electricity.  There is no sun and no moon.  We have just started and I don’t want to give away too much.  I have spoken to the class about keeping information about this book to ourselves so as not to spoil it for anyone else…even if they ask.

Enjoy the week!

October 10, 2011

I hope everyone enjoyed the beautiful fall weekend!

Calendar Events:

October 11, 12, and 18 the third graders will be taking the MEAP.  The MEAP schedule always scrambles our specials  so please note: all of the second graders will swim together Tuesday morning  and all of the third graders will swim together on Friday!

Fall Goal Setting Conferences are coming up!  The sign up sheets are in the A-Wing hall please sign-up for a conference as soon as possible.  Both conference days are 1/2 days of school.

Language Arts:

We are continuing to gain stamina as readers and our students are often heard groaning when they have to put their reading down!  We also enjoy reading with some middle school buddies and parent volunteers.  This week we will have our first opportunity to read with some of our pre-school buddies from Gretchen’s house.

We will be taking advantage of this beautiful weather by going outside and collecting artifacts for some fall writing.

Math:

We continue to work on telling time.  Today we made a Bingo card to play Time Bingo.  We have quite a range of time telling skills in here but we are seeing improvement each day.

Social Studies/Science:

Our class is beginning to learn about landforms and will be taking advantage of our beautiful weather to go out and create some of our own landforms.

Recycling/Composting/Fruit bowl

Thank you, thank you, thank you to all of the parents who fill our fruit bowl and empty our recycling.  One student said to me today, “Do you remember how heavy our trash was before we recycled and composted?”  Last year we collected our trash for a day and weighed it.  The following day we recycled and the difference was so dramatic that we have been recycling and composting ever since.

Have a fantastic week!

October 3, 2011

Calendar Events

I hope you and your family can make it to the 2/3 potluck tomorrow evening!  We will be on the playground for some fun and friends.

Honey Creek Picture Day is this Wednesday, October 5th.

October 7th, 21st, and 28th  are  1/2 days of school.

Important reminder

Please remember that we have a severe tree nut allergy in our class.  Along with that tree nut allergy is also an allergy to sunflower seeds.

Daily 5

We have been hard at work building our reading stamina and working on how to be a good buddy to read with.  Last week, we added word work and independent writing to our Daily 5.  Put those with listening to reading during our read aloud time (Today we started reading Homer Price by Robert McCloskey.) and we are able to accomplish all five each day!

Math

In math we are continuing to learn new games to help us practice our math facts and I know that some of my friends are sharing those at home.  We have also been learning to tell time on analog clocks.  By the end of second grade students should be able to tell time on analog and digital clocks to the nearest five minutes.  For third graders it is to the nearest minute and they should be able to solve word problems involving time.

Meap

The MEAP is coming in October for third graders and up.  In the past, our third graders have had a lot of anxiety surrounding this assessment.  I’ve tried to tell them that it’s all about informing teachers about what they know so that we can meet their needs but they are still anxious.  This year in an effort to ease their minds ahead of time,  we are going to introduce them to the format and types of questions they will see on the MEAP.

Have a fantastic week!

Week 3: 9-19-11

I hope everyone will be able to join us for Curriculum Night this Tuesday!  All three 2 – 3 classes will meet in our room for this event.  The first presentation begins at 6:30, the second at 7:30.  This year in an effort to be green, our handouts will only be available on our website (If you are unable to view them please let me know and I will get a copy for you).  We will present them that evening so that you can see them for the first time while you are with us.  

Notes about Picture Day (October 5) will be in your student’s planner Monday so please look for them in the plastic pocket at the back of the planner.  

Last week we continued to learn about each other while working together and practicing being the best we can be.  We have really enjoyed reading some books by Julia Cook.  A couple of our favorites are I Just Don’t Like the Sound of No!: My Story About Accepting No for an Answer and Disagreeing the Right Way and A Bad Case of Tattle Tongue!  Both books have been fantastic conversation starters.  They are a great way to talk about how to get along with each other this year.  Another fun thing from last week was getting Shadow the guinea pig out during our read aloud.  Shadow was very understanding and let each of us have a chance to hold him while we were listening.  

Reading and Writing

We have been working on building our reading stamina while reading to ourselves.  While building stamina we try our best to stay in one spot, focus on our book, work quietly to avoid disturbing others, and enjoy reading!  We also worked on some strategies to help us become better readers.  Two strategies that we were introduced to were “re-telling” what we just read and going back to “read again” so that we can make sense of what we read.  

As writers we chose one thing that we are good at and began writing about what it was like when we first started.  This is our first “formal” writing and we will be able to try out all of the steps of the writing process with this piece of writing.

Math

Over the next week or so we will be assessing our math skills.  We will be using an assessment that Salli, Tammy, and I developed using the state standards for either 2nd or 3rd grade.  I have explained to my class (and will repeat several times) that I do not expect them to know everything on the assessment as it is a pre and post assessment and I haven’t taught them everything yet.  They took the first part of it on Friday and it seemed relatively stress free.  Meanwhile, we are having a great time learning math games.  So far we know how to play forehead view, coin collector, and trash.  All of these games are from last year and the class experts have really enjoyed teaching them to our new students as well as getting reacquainted with the games.  We are also learning how to play games together, where to get supplies, responsibility, and problem solving.

Science

We conducted our first science experiment this week.  Using apples we wondered if there would be a difference in the amount of water that the apples would lose based on how they were treated ie. peeled, chopped,  and not peeled.  For more information you will have to ask your child.  

Have a wonderful week!

Week 2: 9-12-11

I am extremely excited to come to school each day and by the looks of things so are your children!  We are learning the routines in A6 and are having a fantastic time getting to know each other.

There are some “house-keeping” items that I want everyone to be aware of.

• We will swim each Tuesday morning at 8:30 please help your child remember to have a bathing suit and towel here at school.
• We have two snack times each day.  Our class decided long ago that they get hungry about every two hours during the day and a little something helps us concentrate.   I ask that these snacks are healthy and do not contain TREE NUTS as there is a child with an allergy in the room.  There is a list on our door that defines tree nuts.   However, we LOVE birthdays and for that special treat we often have snacks that lean more toward the cupcake style, we still ask that they do not contain TREE NUTS.
• Please be sure that you have handed in all paperwork to Karen Giltrow including the photo release and the computer usage release.  I would love to post pictures of our class in this blog but need to have that on file first.
• Your child should bring home their planner Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday each week.  Planners do not go home on Friday or over holidays.  Please be sure to read the planner message with your child, initial the planner, and remind them to bring it back to school with them the following day.

Academics

We have been hard at work building our reading stamina.  One way that we do it is by choosing books that are a “Good Fit”  and by using the acronym I PICK.  These are concepts that we are just learning and we would appreciate some help from home.

A good fit book is one that the student can read.  We have been talking about the “five finger rule” in our room.  When you read a page of text,  you hold up a finger each time you come to a word you don’t know.  When you finish the page and you have zero or one finger up,  that book is easy, a comfort book.  If you are holding up two or three  fingers, that book is a good fit.  If you are holding up four or five fingers, that book is too difficult to read and understand on your own.

The I PICK acronym comes from Alicia Darby and thedailycafe.com website.  The first I stands for, I choose a book then comes Purpose, Interest, Comprehension, and Know.  She offers five ways to help you and your child make sure that they are choosing a good book for them:

• 1. Have your child choose a book. This is the first I in IPICK which means “I choose books to read”.
• 2. Ask your child, “What is your purpose for choosing this book?” You may also want to ask, “is it for fun or to learn something?”. This is the P in IPICK which means purpose.
• 3. Ask your child, “Is this a book you are interested in?” This is the second I, which means interest.
• 4. Have your child read a page of the book. After your child reads the page, ask your child, “Who did you read about and what did they do?”. This is the C in IPICK which stands for Comprehend. If it is a good fit book your child should be able to answer your question.
• 5. Have your child read another page (or use the same page) and ask, “Did you know the words?”. This is the K in IPICK which stands for know the words. Your child should know all or almost all of the words in order for it to be a good fit book.

In other news, we are making our way through the writing process by writing about something we are good at.  We have been learning math games that help us practice our facts and skill with coins.  Today we began our “math dailies”, each morning we solve five math problems on paper.

This week we will assess math skills, do some interesting science experiments that will help us learn about the scientific method, continue to build our reading stamina, and keep working on those community building skills in our classroom.