Happy Holidays, and welcome to the end of our December. This weeks blog will review last week (to make up for our lack of a blog) and tell you what is coming up for our week before break.
Math: Last week we spent a lot of time adding by making a ten when one addend is 9. This looks something like this.
and 
9+1=10
10+2=12, so 9+3=12
We are working hard at making sure the students learn how to draw to solve, which makes it so much easier. We ended the week doing the same for solving when one addend is 8, which we will continue this week, as well for 7. We will wrap up this unit on Thursday with an assessment and we will begin Module 2 Topic B when we return from break, which is subtraction word problems. If for any reason we extend any of the lessons, I will skip the end of unit assessment this time around so that we may still begin on a new topic when we return from break.
ELA: Last Week our spelling sound was long a (a_e). This week we will have long i words (i_e).
Social Studies: Last week was our second week of our holiday studies where we learned about Christmas. The kids felt more confident about their knowledge about this holiday, however they learned that what they mostly knew fell under what we call traditions, and not necessarily about the background we are exploring with these holidays (who celebrates, how, why, when). They did a great job thinking deep about what they wanted to learn beyond the traditions, such as "how did Christmas get it's name" and "how did Christmas set started as a holiday?" We also had fun ending the week "making gingerbread houses." Not real houses this year, we had some peel and stick craft houses. This has always been a Friday Christmas week tradition, and I was feeling so bummed that we couldn't have our traditional craft morning this year. I was happy to find a gingerbread house alternative, and happy that this kids had a fun activity to enjoy. I was impressed with their creativity. Next week we will learn all about Hanukkah. I absolutely love learning about this holiday!
Zearn: Zearn is a new math app that aligns with our Eureka math curriculum perfectly. Please make sure that you have Zearn on your child's iPad. If it is not there already, go to the self service app and install it from there. I want to begin Zearn so that they have an alternative to Dreambox, which I know they may be getting a little tired of. I will be starting the students on module one lesson one next week just so they can get used to the program and how it works. Shortly after we return from break I will reassign them all to module 2 to help us practice some of these bigger concepts we are diving into lately. The login for Zearn will be Their first name followed by abc123 (ex: Andreaabc123) and the password is abc123. Isaac and Riley, I will contact you separately with your log in information.
RTI: Due to testing there will not be RTI for the following groups next week: Hanno, Kasch, Anderson, and Shaw. All other RTI groups will continue to meet as scheduled.
December to Remember: Here is a picture of the last five days of our December to Remember:
Winter Break: After our 12:25 release on Friday your students (and you!) will officially be on winter break for the next two weeks. School will be closed from December 20th -January 3rd. We will resume on in Flexible Remote Learning on Monday, January 4th.
One more week, I'm so proud that at the end of the week we will have made it through 18 weeks in FRL together. Who would have ever thought this would be our year together? So crazy, and yet we have made it happen. Nice job. - Ms. Shaw
