Thank You Lieutenant Colonel Corwin!

We certainly appreciate Mr. Corwin (Victoria's dad) for coming into our classroom on Veterans Day to share his experiences of serving as a Lieutenant Colonel in the US Marines Corps.  Mr. Corwin served in the Marines for 28 years!   We thank Mr. Corwin and all other military veterans for their service to our country.  

October/November Classroom Snapshot of Events

Here's what has been happening in our classroom:

Reading:

Throughout whole group CAFE strategy lessons, our class has been working with the comprehension strategies of  determining the author's purpose for writing (to persuade, inform, or entertain the reader); learning how to generate questions when we read; and learning how to summarize a passage.   Additionally, we have been learning how to be more accurate and fluent readers by reviewing the various strategies of  being a voracious reader; learning how to read appropriate level texts that are a good fit; and being able to cross-check what we read for understanding or to skip a word we don't know and come back to it or substitute another word that makes sense.    

We also have been having mini-lessons about how the students can monitor our own comprehension when they read.   Together, the students are learning how to "follow their inner conversation"  and "notice when they lose their way" when they read independently.    As the result, the student have been learning how to listen to the voice in their head when they read and stopping to "fix-up" problems when their comprehension breaks down.

During our extended vocabulary time, the students have been working with homographs. These are words that are spelled the same, but have different meanings. Additionally, the students have also been using the website called Dictionary.com to learn how to find the various definitions of words having multiple meanings.  

The students are beginning to settle into the routines and practices of guided reading groups.  I have placed your child in a group and provided them with an appropriate books that I feel matches their reading strengths and capabilities. Our guided reading time involves assigning students chapters to read independently and meeting several times a week with me to work on comprehension, fluency, and extended vocabulary skills.    Afterwards, they can complete one of their Weekly 5 assigned activities.  Throughout the year, your child may be moved to a different guided reading group depending on their needs. If your child has a difficult time finishing their guided reading assignment during the scheduled 60 minute literacy period, they may be asked to finish it that night for homework.

Grammar:

Over the past month, the students have been working on determining the difference between finding the subject and predicate in a sentence. We also have been learning the proper way to combine two sentences that are alike by using a comma and the words "but" or "and" to make one compound sentence. Additionally, we have been working on learning how to capitalize proper nouns and the rules for making words plural.  

During literacy time, the students had fun practicing these skills with the following web pages. Feel free to lick on these links to view and play the web site games at home: Rags to Riches , Compound Sentences, Rats, and The Plural Girls.  

Spelling:

I appreciate all of the hard work that each student gives to spelling each evening. Please continue to make sure that they are sorting their words correctly into their various spelling categories. The goal of our spelling program is for the students to learn and retain the spelling rules and word patterns for future use in their writing. The nightly spelling sorts and activities will help your student to reach this goal.

Writing:

Throughout Writer's Express (WEX) time, our class continues to work hard learning about the important elements to include in a personal narrative. Together, our mini-lessons have been focusing on writing our paragraphs in a more logical and organized manner. In addition, we are continuing to make sure that our work focuses on a single moment in time. Our lessons have been stressing the importance of utilizing strong verbs, good sensory detail, and proper sentence mechanics in our writing.

During conference time, parents will be able to view all of our stories in our WEX binder. Parents will also get to read our first published personal narrative that we just finished writing,  revising, conferencing, and editing last week in a program called Googledocs.  

Math:

In October, our class completed Unit 2 in math that involved adding and subtracting whole numbers. The students have been working hard learning about fact families, extensions of addition and subtraction facts, two and three digit addition and subtraction problems, "What's My Rule?" problems, parts-and-total number stories, and comparision number stories.   We will wrap up Unit 3 this week that involves learning about both the U.S. Customary and metric forms of measurement.  Our final test on Unit 3 will be on Tuesday.  

A BIG THANKS goes out to all of the parents that helped your child to start an Xtramath.org account.   Everyone did a great job with logging into the program and settling into the routine of practicing their math facts.   I appreciate all of the help and assistance with making sure your child completes at least three rounds of math practice a week.  

Social Studies:

Our class just finished up learning about the history and landmarks in Chicago.   We still will continue to work on extended enrichment activities twice a week in the LMC with Mrs. Kleist and Mrs. Cerniglia that focus on Chicago and Illinois.  

Currently, the students have been put into research groups to work on our "Weekend in Chicago" podcasts.   Within their group, their job is to research and plan a weekend in the Windy City.    Through the research, the groups are taking notes on attractions and activities they want to visit,  restaurants they want to eat in, and finding a hotel they want to stay in. (Please click here to view the websites that the students are researching from.)  After they have researched and planned their weekend, their group will be creating a podcast to share with the rest of the class about their fun-filled weekend.   Once our podcasts are finished, we will post them on our webpage for all to view.   

A BIG THANK YOU goes to all of our parent classroom volunteers You are all amazing!

We would like to thank Mrs. Tiedge for setting up our fantastic Sign-Up Genius volunteer lists.  

I would also like to thank Mr. and Mrs. Stahr, Mrs. Leu (Esquivel), Mrs. Owen, and Mrs. Wengronowitz for coming in this past month to make copies for our class.    There's still a lot spots available to come on in to help copy during the months of January through May.   If you're interesting in volunteering, please click on this Sign-Up Genius link: http://www.signupgenius.com/go/10c0a4fabad2ea5f58-copy

We were able to have two successful Reader Theater sessions. This is where the students are put into a small group with a parent and are asked to read aloud from a short play script. We certainly appreciate Mrs. Kuhn, Mrs. Stahr, Mrs. Davenport, Mrs. Corwin, and Mrs. Butler for coming in to assist and monitor each of our groups!  

Our class was also able to experience our first Art Appreciation last month.   We would like to thank Mrs. Butler and Mrs. Georg for conducting a wonderful art lesson about Chicago architecture.   

We also would personally like to thank Mrs. Kuhn for taking time out of her busy schedule to take inventory on our Science boxes that just arrived!

Thank You Mr. Valathur!

We would like to thank Mr. Valathur (Srimathi's dad), for coming into our classroom to give such a fantastic presentation and teach us all about the Indian holiday of Diwali.    We learned so much and had a great time!  Enjoy some of the pictures from our event.

Parent Teacher Conference Sign-Up

Information from the office regarding signing up for Parent/Teacher Conferences:

Westgate will be using SignUp Genius as an electronic way to schedule Parent/Teacher Conferences for November 24th and November 25th. Families without access to the internet or a computer should contact your child’s teacher.

On Monday, November 3rd at 10:00AM, all parents registered on SchoolMessenger will receive an electronic message with homeroom teacher’s link to SignUpGenius. Parent will need this link to use SingUpGenius for conferences. Parents will need to follow the Parent/Teacher Conference SignUpGenius info sheet (electronic sheet located in the Friday Packet and sent electronically through SchoolMessenger.)