Dutton Digest
January 24, 2014
Language Arts
We started the week by reading a community story, Officer Buckle and Gloria. Officer Buckle visits schools to share safety tips with the children. The children are bored until his police dog Gloria accompanies him and entertains the children while he presents the safety lessons. We discussed the reasons why author’s write stories; to persuade us to do or think something, to inform us (nonfiction books), or to entertain us (fiction books). We came to the conclusion that Peggy Rathmann, the author, wrote this book to entertain us, especially since we found ourselves laughing throughout the story. We also looked at Officer Buckle closely and discussed how he changed from the beginning to the end of the story.
Next, we prepared to celebrate our 100th Day of School on Friday by reading The 100th Day Project. Our main character, Leticia, is assigned a creative project, finding 100 things to take to school as her class celebrated the 100th Day of school. Her family helps her brainstorm ideas to complete her project. I think we were all surprised at what she ended up choosing to take to school. Skills that we focused on were sequencing, glossary, table of contents, summarizing and comprehension.
We had a great time presenting our own 100th Day projects. We have some really creative kids ourselves. Thank you for helping your child with completing this project. They had fun!!
In Writing Workshop we continued writing small moment stories from our lives, but once we have finished a story, we go back and revise it by rereading it and see if there is anything that we can add or take away from our stories. I have challenged the students to start adding some dialogs to their stories. What fun!!
We celebrated the 100th day of school in writing by writing about what we will do when we are 100 years old. These will be keepsakes!
Math
We started the week by taking our next 100 fact addition timed test. We bumped our time down to 9 minutes, and the kids did quite well.. Keep practicing those addition problems at home to help your child be more successful with completing this test. Finally the kids took another written assessment.
We continued learning how to use base 10 blocks to represent a number. Once they were able to represent a three-digit number with base 10 blocks, we learned how to put the numbers in order from least to greatest, as well as finding the median of a set of numbers. A lot of mathematical terminology was used this weekJ
We have quickly learned how to tell time in 5 minute intervals. All the time we have spent practicing counting by 5’s using an analog clock has really helped us grasp this concept much quicker. Help your child practice telling time by asking them to tell you the time on an analog clock on a regular basis. Don’t forget to ask them if it is a.m. or p.m. as they tell you the correct time.
Friday marked the 100th Day of school. We celebrated the occasion with mathematical activities involving 100. What fun!!!
Social Studies
We reviewed the importance and the different types of transportation, communication, and protection in our communities.
Next we learned how leaders help their communities. We discussed the roles of mayors, governors, and president. We also learned that our communities leaders are elected by the people.
Keep practicing your full name, street address, town, state, zip code, and birthday for the upcoming address test. Remember the test is Thursday, January 30th and everything needs to be spelling correctly.
Martin Luther King Jr.
On Monday to celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day, we learned some information about Dr. King and why he was an important figure in our country’s growth. We read the book I Have a Dream. This book recited Dr. King’s famous speech with some beautiful pictures. We had a wonderful discussion about the importance of treating people by their heart and actions, not by how they look. The kids then wrote about a dream that they have to make our world a better place and attached it to Dr. King.
Upcoming Events
Early Dismissal @ 12:55
Wed., Jan. 29th
Address Test
Thurs., Jan. 30th
PTE School Skate
Thurs., Jan 30th
(6:00-8:00)
No School (Teacher In-Service)
Mon., Feb. 17th
Conferences
Feb. 18th & 20th