We Want Your Pictures!

Kids love to share pictures of all the fun things they do at home. It builds their confidence and builds community in our classroom as a whole! So, if you take pictures of fun things your child does, please e-mail them to me in an attachment. Examples include pictures of parties, holiday activities (you probably have some cute Halloween and Diwali pictures!) or vacations. As a bonus, it gives children ideas of topics to write about in their journals.

For example...here is one of our friends making a Halloween pumpkin...

And here is his really great journal entry about it...


So get busy taking those pictures and send them to me! Thanks!

Books...Lots and Lots of books!

Did you find all of those little books at the bottom of your child's backpack? Please get them out and start reading every night! Make sure your child points to each word as they read. Ask them to find specific words ("Show me the word go.") or letters ("Do you see the letter B on this page?") And have them retell the story with as many details as possible (I know these are very simple stories, but so are the stories we read in the reading assessments, and almost all of the kids had trouble retelling those, which is a requirement for moving to the next reading level!)

Making Words

We are making words! Every week, we learn a different word family, or spelling pattern. We use letter cards and put them together in different ways to make different words.

Here is the -og word family. Look for these cards to come home this week and practice making words at home. Some will have pictures...

Some might not have pictures. Some words are challenging, like words that have consonant blends (i.e. cl). Some might be good vocabulary words (we talked a lot this week about what a clog is!)

Please keep these cards in a safe place and practice making and reading words often with your kids!

Making Shapes

As part of our Shapes unit, we used pattern blocks to see what shapes we could make out of other shapes. We made squares, hexagons, and triangles...
rectangles and trapezoids...

giant rectangles and rhombuses...

But no matter how hard we tried (and we really tried!), we could not make a circle. See if your kids can explain why...

Shape Robots

We had a lot of fun using all the 2-dimensional shapes we learned about to create robots!

Shapes, Shapes, Shapes...

We are learning about 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional geometric figures (that’s shapes to me and you!) Children should be able to name the shapes, and describe them by their attributes. They should be able to find examples in the real world and compare and contrast 2 or more shapes. For example, they should be able to tell me that a square and a triangle are the same because they both have straight sides, but they are different because a square has 4 sides and a triangle only has 3. Below, I have listed the different shapes we are learning about and some things they should know about each. I don’t expect them to memorize every detail about every shape, but I do expect them to be able to talk about them and use some math language.

2-Dimensional Shapes are FLAT like a PANCAKE!

Rectangle

• 4 sides
• 4 corners
• Straight sides
  

Square

• 4 sides
• 4 corners
• Straight sides
• A "special" kind of rectangle--all 4 sides are equal length!

Triangle

• 3 sides
• 3 corners
• Straight sides

Rhombus

• 4 sides
• 4 corners
• Straight sides
• Looks like a square with the corners pulled tight.
• You may know it as a "diamond"

Trapezoid

• 4 sides
• 4 corners
• Straight sides
• Looks like a triangle with the top cut off
• Has diagonal lines

Hexagon

• 6 sides
• 6 corners
• Straight sides

Circle

• Zero sides
• Zero corners
• A curved line that is closed

Oval

• Zero sides
• Zero corners
• A curved line that is closed
• Looks like an egg

3-Dimensional Shapes have heighth, width and depth (in kindergarten talk--they "come out at you, like a 3-D movie). They are NOT flat like a pancake!

Cube

• 6 square faces
• Will slide, but not roll

Sphere

• Round like a ball
• No faces or corners
• Will roll

Cone

• Circle base
• point at the top
• Will roll around in a circle

Pyramid

• Square or triangle base
• Triangle faces
• point at the top
• Will slide, but not roll

Cylinder

• 2 circle bases
• Can roll and slide
  

Rectangular Prism

• 6 rectangular (can be square) faces
• Can slide, but not roll
• Prisms can be rectangular, square, triangular, even hexagonal!
  

We are learning the following TEKS when we learn about shapes:

K.8 Geometry and spatial reasoning. The student uses attributes to determine how objects are alike and different.
K.8A Describe and identify an object by its attributes using informal language.
K.8B Compare two objects based on their attributes.
K.8C Sort a variety of objects including two- and three-dimensional geometric figures according to their attributes and describe how the objects are sorted.

K.9 Geometry and spatial reasoning.
The student recognizes attributes of two- and three-dimensional geometric figures.
K.9A Describe and compare the attributes of real-life objects such as balls, boxes, cans and cones or models of three-dimensional geometric figures.
K.9B: Recognize shapes in real-life three-dimensional geometric figures or models of three-dimensional geometric figures.
K.9C Describe, identify, and compare circles, triangles, rectangles and squares (a special type of rectangle).

We Love Our Reading Buddies!

Everyother Friday, we get together with our Reading Buddies from Mrs. McNair's 3rd-grade class.
They read to us...

And we read to them...

And we all have fun!