December 7th-11th Newsletter

We have been having fun learning about part of speech, including nouns, verbs and adjectives. Surprisingly, our favorite videos have been SchoolHouse Rock! I watched these as a kid, and I'm sure many of you have also. Here are some of our favorites.
Verbs Video
Adjectives Video
Nouns Video

In phonics, we are learning all about the Bossy-R. This week is all about the -er. Our words for the week are her, herd, fern, after, term, ever, lever, under, filter, number, farmer, dumpster. We have really caught on quickly to this skill!

In math, we have been learning a lot about subtraction strategies, including thinking addition to subtract, making 10 to subtract, counting up and counting back, and finding the related facts. We have also been learning about making fact families, which is a group of 4 problems (2 addition, 2 subtraction) that are created using the same numbers.

In reading, we are learning all about the characteristics of fairy tales, including good & evil characters, talking animals, a setting, problem/solution and a lesson/moral/central message. We are also working with fractured fairy tales. A fractured fairy tale is a story that has a similar storyline, but things are fractured or broken from the original. For example, last week, we read different versions of Cinderella from around the world. They were all similar because their was a girl that was trying to find love and happiness. Many of our Cinderellas had a Fairy Godmother or a woman that helped them make it to the ball/fiesta. For our fractured version of Cinderella, we read Bubba the Cowboy Prince. You can watch another teach read it, but she doesn't have the excellent Texan accent I have :) Now, in this version, Bubba wants to find love, but his Wicked Stepdaddy and mean stepbrothers try and stand in his way. But with a little help from his Fairy Godcow (yep, Fairy Godcow), everything works out. The storyline was similar, but the characters were super different!

In writing, after a lot of patiently waiting, we have finally started working on fiction writing! This week was a focus on realistic fiction (made up characters & adventures, but things that could actually happen in read life). Next week, we get to write our own FRACTURED FAIRY TALES!!!! If you can't tell, I'm super excited about this.

Enjoy the rest of your week and weekend! Oh, and Pajama Day is next Monday, December 14th!