January 2018 Newletter

What is a community?
As we enter our new unit, COMMUNITIES, students have begun brainstorming a variety of communities that we know about and discussed how they are alike and different. We know that each of us belong to a community, so we started exploring how we fit into it. During this unit, the students will explore what it means to be a member of a community and how communities can be successful.


So far…….
        We have talked about our school community, Riverview Charter School, and discussed that we are all an important part of our classroom and our school. We realized that our family communities are a part of our bigger classroom communities which is a part of our bigger school communities.
We have also discussed what makes a community successful and through that discussion, we found that jobs play a big role in a community. We created a classroom job chart and will begin rotating through the different jobs for the rest of this year. 

Coming Soon….
   In the coming weeks, we will take a tour around our school and visit some of the important people inside our school community. We will learn about what they do and why their jobs are important. We will also take a field trip to downtown Beaufort, so that we can learn about a community bigger than the school community which is our city community. 

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Literacy
 Our Guided Reading groups are up and running!  The students are all growing as readers.  This time of our day is when each student receives targeted instruction on his/her appropriate level from the teachers in small groups while the rest of the students are engaged in independent literacy activities from our Daily Five Choices.

The Daily Five includes:
1. Read to Self- we practice reading books on our own reading level.
2. Read to Someone- we read books to or with a buddy.
3. Work on Writing- we write stories with text and illustrations of our choosing.
4. Listen to Reading- stories are read aloud to us on through a IPAD.
5. Word Work-we practice making and writing sight and other words. ​

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Math
     Since returning from break the students have begun something new, Calendar Binders! We keep track of the weather, seasons, months, days of the week and more in our own individual binders. This practices a variety of math skills and is a favorite time of the day!  Our focus in math has been 3-D shapes and reviewing teen numbers (and higher numbers!). We are all becoming experts on 3D shapes! We can names them, find them in our environment and find 2D shapes within the 3D shapes. Check and see if we can find any at home or in our community!

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