Weekly Update

Kindergarten: We made predictions this week using the Mystery Box.  Inside the box was a leaf, a mouse, and a pumpkin.  It was very interesting to hear the predictions that were made.  We read the book Mousekin's Golden House by Edna Miller and wrote about what else an old jack-o-lantern could be.

First Grade: We read Bread and Jam for Frances by Russell Hoban and discussed the importance of choosing different books in the library.  Although we have our favorites, we need to read a variety of books.  The students filled out a sheet about their "bread and jam book" and trying something new.  Hopefully, you saw a different type of book come home this week!

Second Grade:  We read Milly and the Macy's Parade by Shana Corey.  This is a historical fiction book about how the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade was started.  We worked on our predicting skills throughout the book.  This is a skill also being taught in the classroom.

Third Grade: Our essential skill for second quarter is searching and locating books in the library.  We took a survey on our knowledge of the library catalog and started to explore what it can do.  We'll continue working on this to become experts at finding what we want.

Fourth Grade: Searching and locating books in the library is our skill too.  We reviewed where books are located in our library and how they are shelved.  We'll continue to work with the library catalog.

Fifth Grade: In Social Studies, explorers is the focus, so in library we're searching and locating information online about different explorers.  We took notes and discussed what we found.

Sixth Grade: The Northwest Pacific Tree Octopus was our focus this week.  We learned about this endangered creature, took notes, and discussed our findings as a class.  It was very informative!

Please check out the book fair over conferences.  It's a great way to support your students' literacy!

Scholastic Book Fair

Books are Gifts that Last a Lifetime


Hello from Mrs. Newgard,

It's Book Fair time at our school! I've created a classroom wish list to add new books to our school library. You can view my library wish list and purchase books from our school Book Fair website. These books will be treasured by students for years to come.

You can visit our online Book Fair anytime until 11/27/2012.  All books purchased will be shipped directly to me at school with no shipping charge. Thanks for getting our class excited about reading.

Your support is appreciated,

Mrs. Newgard

Scholastic Book Fairs inspire a lifetime love of reading. A percentage of the total proceeds raised during the Book Fair will stay with the school and help get more kids reading, kids reading more! Visit the Book Fair Web site for detailed information. 

Weekly Update

Kindergarten: We read Halloween inspired books this week.  We learned about the word prediction and how we can use that to be good readers.

First Grade: We finished our unit on looking for text-to-text connections.  This week we read Zoom Broom by Margie Palatini. We compared it with Piggie Pie, also by her, which we read last week.

Second Grade:  We continued with notetaking this week.  We read a book about pumpkins and took notes as a large group.

Third Grade: 3R and 3M worked on summarizing the book The Widow's Broom by Chris Van Allsburg.  3S didn't have class because of Museum School.  Congratulations to Mrs. Michael's class for winning the genre challenge for October!

Fourth Grade: We used Animoto to share our short video about the Wax Museum person.  They also started discussing the library and how to find things they need.  The videos can be found on the library website, Ms. Hewett's class and Mrs. Canady's class.

Fifth & Sixth Grade: We are finishing work on Digital Citizenship with an online program through CommonSense Media.  This week our focus was how to search using keywords.  We need to remember that fewer words sometimes make the best searches!

Overall, we have had a great first quarter!  Watch for overdue notices coming home over conferences!