March 2021 - Monthly Update

March 2021 – Monthly Update

March has quickly arrived in Room 4!  We are excited about so many wonderful things happening this month.  Today we began Hybrid Learning in Grandview School!  We are so happy that students are finally “in Room 4”!  We will be working with children on Virtual Learning alongside our ‘in-class’ learners.  This will be good for our students as we add a new dimension to our busy school day.  We know this will be a time of adjustment and transition, but are sure we will settle in soon, enjoy the new changes and interact even more with one another. J

It is such a delight to be celebrating “Read Across America” with your children this week too!  We look forward participating in Grandview’s special activities this week: welcoming Mrs. Parrish, a Piscataway District Literacy Coach to read a special story to our class; inviting Family Guest readers in for story time in our room; having a Piscataway High School student visit our class Zoom Room and read to us; enjoying a special story time with a Piscataway Township Librarian; and listening to many Dr. Seuss stories and working on some very fun projects and literacy activities. 

The week is filled with special dress-up clothing items and today we looked AMAZING in all our different hats!  We listened to a great book about hats titled “Do You Have a Hat?” by Eileen Spinelli.  WOW!  There are so many different types of hats!  To connect with this story we created our own Dr. Seuss hats to wear all week and helped decorate a NEW hat for the Cat in the Hat. Finally, we loved learning how to do the Mexican Hat Dance and enjoyed dancing with our teachers and classmates in school (Roomies) and at home (Zoomies). J  

In our Writer’s Workshop, “How-To Books: Writing to Teach Others” our goals every day are to polish up our How-To Books.  We are working to draw detailed pictures, labelling our pictures and writing clear sentences on each of the steps in our How-To books.  Please continue to practice these skills to write a “complete sentence” at home with your child as they work on their in-class and homework assignments:

  1. Begin a sentence with an upper case letter.
  2. Leave spaces between each word of the sentence.
  3. Stretch the words and write letters for all the sounds
  4. End the sentence with the correct punctuation.

Your child should be able to write almost all of the sounds of the words independently.  Please do not spell the words for them.  If they need help, please provide them with a Sound Map. 

In Reader’s Workshop, “Bigger Books, Bigger Reading Muscles”, we are learning about patterns in books and practicing using all of our “Super Powers” that we learned in our last unit.  We are working on our reading skills and using all the strategies we know to help us become better readers.  The students are reading on their own Reading A-Z levels and developing their comprehension skills each day.  At home, please encourage your child to read for at least 15-20 minutes each day.  J

In our Go Math! curriculum we have almost completed Chapter 7 – Represent, Count, and Write 11 to 19.  The students have been learning how to use ten frames, counters, interlocking cubes to help them understand “teen” numbers.  Such as, learning that the number ‘16’ is: 10 ones and 6 ones, 16 = 10 + 6.  We have also been working on these areas:  counting and writing numbers in order from 1 up to 50 or higher; calendar math- days of the week and months of the year; calendar journals to record the date, weather, number of days in school; using a hundred chart to count to 100 by ones, fives and tens; counting groups of 10 and writing by tens to 100; counting by 2’s to 50; finding and writing missing numbers on a number chart; exploring tangrams.  This month we will cover Chapter 8 – Represent, Count and Write 20 and Beyond.

In Science…we continue to enjoy “Mystery Science” and have learned so many things about “Force Olympics” – Forces, Machines & Engineering.  We also really loved learning about real “hearts” to coincide with Valentine’s Day last month.  A favorite activity was going on an African Animal “Heart” Safari in our homes!  In our Let’s Find Out magazine – we learned about Arctic Animals and created beautiful Arctic dioramas – where we chose different arctic animals and placed them in their specific habitat in the location where they would be found.  The children loved it and their creations were “Snow” Nice!  J  During the month of March we will be learning about:  different types of eggs; Rain/Weather/Five Senses and Spring!

In Social Studies, we delved into Black History month and Celebrating our Diversity. We learned about many special people who made history by standing up for what they believe in and were brave in wanting fairness and equality for ALL.  We learned about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks, Ruby Bridges, Ron McNair, Dr. Mae Jemison and read some wonderful stories:  Lottie Paris and the Best Place Ron’s Big Mission, Mae Among the Stars and We All Are Welcome.  During the month of March we will be learning about American Symbols, Patriotic Songs and Woman’s History month.

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Some special dates to remember this month are:

March 1-5 – Read Across America week

March 9 – Early Dismissal for students/Teacher In-Service Day

March 17 – St Patrick’s Day fun!        

March 20 – First Day of Spring!   

March 29-April 4 – Spring Break! – School Closed                                 

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Thank you so much for all the many donations to our room! We truly appreciate your kindness to us.  We love having your families and your sweet children with us this year!  J J

Happy Spring to All!