November 6, 2009
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Parent Conferences
GP and Special Friends
Book Fair
Banyan Book Fair Visit
Thank you all for meeting with
Day
Monday, November 9-13.
Monday, November
us this past week. Aa always,
Tuesday, November 24th.
Book Fair weekend:
9th: 9:10-9:50. Please
November 6, 7, 8.
join us at the book fair!
please feel free to contact me at anytime.
READING: Banyan readers have filling their reading tool box with reading tools and strategies! We use these tools when we decode a new or unfamiliar word. Sometimes, we use more than one tool at a time and we have to decide which tool is most efficient.
Use the picture
Use the first letters of a word
Look at the ending letters of the word
What makes sense?
Skip and return
Look through the whole word
Clean up, reread
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Word Work We continued to work in centers, Students sorted words by vowel sounds and beginning letters. They played word tile games. We looked at the following spelling patterns: in and ap. We also recited some fun tongue twisters: Kade’s and Kylar’s kittens kissed Karen. Try saying that 5 times fast!
November 6, 2009
BA N YA N
Math: Geometry We continued our unit on
about planning your story. They began writing their first small moment.
Geometry. We used the power
Science
polygons and looked closely at triangles
We explored the idea: Do snails
and quadrilaterals. We compared
prefer the light or the dark? The
shapes to each other. We assessed the
students designed their own tunnels
students on what they knew about
and houses for the snails and placed
triangles.
them on the tray according to what
We began creating quilt designs and looking at the shapes in each
would be a fair test. Most students
design. The Banyan students began creating their own 9 square quilt pattern.
Writing Workshop
Halloween in Banyan!
found that the snails preferred the dark. Math Vocabulary • Vertices • Quadrilaterals
Banyan writers began writing small moments. We read A Chair For My Mother by Vera B. Williams and Zoom by Istvan Banyai. We talked about focusing in on one small moment and
Social Studies: Portrait Gallery We finished our portraits. The students put on the final touches of
hair, eyes, noses and lips. We looked at the way artists draw eyes, noses and mouths and then sketched our own. We used
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pastels to add in the colors. Theses wonderful creations are hanging in our classroom. Come in and check them out!