News from Room 203 :)

Hi Room 203 families,

I hope everyone's week is off to a great start! Here's a quick snapshot of our week:

• Reading- We are learning about Overall Structure (beginning, middle, and end) and continuing to practice Daily 5 Rotations (Read to Self, Read to Someone, Listen to Reading, Work on Writing, and Word Work). I am excited about some of the new stations we added to Work on Writing and Word Work and the kids seem to love them, too! Students are practicing getting started right away, working the whole time, and building up stamina! Be on the lookout for a "Room 203 Productions" Daily 5 music video coming soon ;) If you want a preview, ask your son or daughter to sing our Daily 5 song. 

• Math- We are working on Make 10, Base 10 blocks, and Combinations of 10. We also include time and money as part of our daily routine.

• Fundations- We wrapped up Unit 1 and will be starting Unit 2 next Monday! Fundations homework this week will be Unit 1 review words.

• Writing- We are practicing the Writing Process (Prewrite, Draft, Revise, Edit, Publish) and right now students are in the Prewrite phase for their personal narratives. We are practicing planning strategies including graphic organizers and brainstorming.

• Science- We are still working on States of Matter! This year I will be using a website called Discovery Education where students will have individual assignments related to science content. If you'd like to see what this looks like, feel free to login as one of my students: 

• Go to discoveryeducation.com  The username is mswstudent and pw is CLX.2014. Once you're logged in, click on "assignments" and you will see helpful resources that I've assigned to my class. My newest assignment is the "States of Matter Board" at the very bottom of the assignments list. This digital bulletin board includes videos and text and is very engaging for the students! Later this month students will be creating their own digital boards summarizing what they've learned about States of Matter.

• Social Studies- We are learning about community helpers. :)

Reminder- This Friday is Sports Team Spirit Day. (Go Asheville Bulldogs and TAR HEELS!) Your child may wear attire (no hats though, please) from his/her favorite sports team or bring in a book about the team. 

As always, please feel free to reach out to me with any questions or comments.

Thanks for stopping by, 

Write with Wertheim: Fundations Guided Practice

Hello again Room 203 families,

I just wanted to let everyone know about some helpful Fundations resources available on my blog under the Fundations tab. On my Fundations page, you will find songs, videos, and tutorials for marking words. I also have guided lessons called "Write with Wertheim" (see example below) that students can follow along with for extra practice. All lessons can be found on my Fundations page. Be on the lookout for new lessons coming each week! This would be great practice before a unit test, or as a review of previous units. I hope this is helpful! As always, feel free to call or email me with any questions about Fundations.






 Thanks so much!

Super Science

Hi Room 203 families, I hope everyone is having a fabulous weekend! I wanted to share some photos from our Super Science Day on Friday. We started out our morning by exploring states of matter: solids, liquids, and gases. Students practiced using their science notebooks to record observations at each station. They loved it! 

In the afternoon, we took a trip to the Media Center to participate in our first STEAM lesson of the year! STEAM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, and Math. In this lesson students explored different careers in STEAM (including architecture, marine engineering, aerospace engineering, culinary arts, fashion design, video game design and car design). Then they discussed the importance of teamwork in all the careers, remembering that "you can't have STEAM without TEAM." 

Finally, the kids worked in teams of three to design and build "tall towers" using only toothpicks, spaghetti, and gumdrops. Their only rule was that it had to be free-standing. They worked completely as a team with no adult help. It was incredible to see what they came up with! 

This is a lesson we'd all love to do again! :)

Until next time,