March 6

Hello!

Just a quick reminder that the school district meeting is at SMS tonight beginning at 7:00. Free child care will be provided by the Stratham Teachers' Association (for those attending the meeting) at the PTO movie night beginning at 6:30 .

Here is a glimpse into our week:

Readers' Workshop: We have begun learning about reading for information. The children were introduced to the terms Fiction and Non-Fiction and are beginning to categorize the books we read. They were assigned new partnerships this week and are working in new reading spots.

Writers' Workshop: We have begun learning about "How To" books. The children have read and explored the traits of these non-fiction texts. Next week we will begin writing our own "How To" books.

Interactive Read Aloud: We have been doing these all year, but I changed up the format a bit this week. We have begun reading certain stories in a circle where we have discussions without raising our hands. We are using the norms we established for our science talks, but added onto them. The children are agreeing and disagreeing with each other using polite/respectful language and are citing reasons for their thinking. It has been amazing to watch! The story Rainbow Fish provided lots of discussions on sharing and kindness and Ira Sleeps Over led to some great discussions on teasing and worry.

Visual Art: The children have created some great spring art to decorate our bulletin boards! We have sparkling shamrocks and are in the process of making rainbows. They also water-colored rainbow fish.

Math: This week's math workshop has been full of addition stories/word problems. The children focused on the addition and equal symbols. We continue to work on developing an understanding on teen numbers being "ten plus _ more" through games and activities. We played Monster Squeeze on the iPads and learned a new game called "Growing Train" to practice addition.

Dramatic Play: The fish class grocery store opened today! The children are thinking about a name for the store and are enjoying playing there.

Up-coming Events:

• No School 3/13
• Word of the Week-we
• Lively Letter-c *Our last phonics letter!
• Handwriting- r, n & m

Happy "spring forward" weekend!

Kristen