Ms. Studt's Class

Feb 27-Mar 2

2012-02-25T21:16:00.001-06:00

Be sure to check out our pictures from Valentine's Day. We had a great time making Valentines out of hearts that looked like butterflies. The students enjoyed passing out their cards as well!

This week is a short week due to conferences on Thursday and Friday. Be sure to look in your child's folder for a reminder about your time. Our class had 100% of parents present for Fall conferences and I would love to have everyone attend again! Miss Hilbert, one of our UNI students, will be sitting in on some of the conferences on Thursday.

Last week during our reading time, I was listening to the students read their bedrock words. The bedrock words is a list of 250 words that are seen in most children's books. I also did a fluency probe where the students read a story for one minute and I count the words correct per minute. All students made some gain from the 2nd quarter to this quarter. One thing that helps students improve their fluency is listening to reading. You can help with this by reading to your child at home.

In math, we are working on addition strategies. During conferences, there will be math displays in the cafeteria showing some of the things we are working on in class and some of the things you can do at home. Be sure to stop by before or after your child's conference time!

Feb 13-17

2012-02-13T22:20:00.001-06:00

I hope everyone enjoyed their extra day off last week! We had a great end to the week in class. There were quite a few students who were able to move their clip up on Wednesday and Thursday! If you haven't seen it yet, our stoplight has been re-done. Students can still move their clips down to yellow (warning), orange (note home and recess), or red (office visit and recess). But now students can move their clip up to pink (2 extra purple tickets), blue (treasure chest), or purple (good note or phone call). If a student is on purple and is still on TRCC, I take their clip and put it on my nametag for everyone to see as we walk around the building!

This week got off to a good start with Miss McAtee back in our room! Mrs. Schneider, the guidance counselor, also came to our class today. She presented Take Charge of Your Body. Students learned how to deal with situations that make them feel uncomfortable by first saying "no", then leaving the situation, and finally telling a trusted adult. They also learned how to tell if someone is a stranger. It is suggested to have a secret password between you and your child. If a stranger approaches your child, they ask "what's the password" and if the person does not know, then the child knows they are a stranger and should not go with that person.

Tomorrow is our Valentine's Day party! Be sure to look for pictures later this week! Miss Hilbert will be joining our class in the afternoon, helping with math and with our party. Students will be doing activities throughout the day to show how they care for others, decorating bags to place Valentine cards in and having a few treats.

Conferences are quickly approaching! They will be Thursday, March 1 and Friday, March 2. Notes went home today with the same time slot that you had in the Fall. Please let me know if this time no longer works for you and I will do my best to switch things around. If you have any concerns that you would like me to address before conferences, please let me know! Our class had 100% attendance at Fall conferences and I would love to see you all for Spring conferences!!!

Feb 6-9

2012-02-06T22:09:00.001-06:00

Our new game, doodle, is going over very well in class. The students really seem to be enjoying practicing their words in a different way! We've found that this game works on more than just their sight words, too. Students build trust because they have to be honest by not peeking when picking.

Miss McAtee was back in our class today! She was a great help as the students took a test on measuring. We've been working hard on using different units of measurement and realizing that we don't need to use as many if the the unit is bigger. Miss Hilbert will be in our class again tomorrow. She'll be helping the students practice telling time to the hour. One or both of our fantastic UNI students may be sitting in on conferences, depending on their schedules. This is a great opportunity for them to see what a parent/teacher conference looks like. We are lucky to have so many cooperative parents who allow our UNI students to sit in and observe something that they don't teach in any college classes. As always, if you do not want them to sit in, there is plenty for them to work on while we meet.

We had guidance with Mrs. Schneider today. The students are working on handling situations when someone is bothering or bullying them or a friend. There are three ways to handle a situation. You can be "hot" by screaming at the offender; you can be "cold" by giving up on the situation; or you can be "cool" by either taking a break and resolving the conflict later or by telling the offender how you feel. Next week, Mrs. Schneider will be presenting "Take Charge of Your Body".

***Reminder: No school on Friday***

Sight word game

2012-01-31T20:51:00.001-06:00

Tired of quizzing your child on their sight words? Some of the students learned a new game today called doodle. You write some of their sight words on index cards and add in a few cards that say doodle. Place them face down as you would for go fish. Take turns drawing cards. If your child reads the card correctly, they get to keep the card. If they read the word incorrectly, they put back all of their cards. If they pull a doodle card, they put all of their cards back. The end of the game is up to you. You can either put the doodle cards back in each time one is pulled and the game is over when you run out of time to play OR when a doodle card is pulled, you put back all the words but set the doodle card off to the side. Eventually there will be no doodle cards left and it's down to your child reading all of their words correctly to finish the game.

You can play this game with math facts too! Put different addition or subtraction facts on a card and if your child can give the correct answer, they get to keep the card. Your child may need a little more guidance with this version since we don't do a lot of math facts in the room.

You can continue to use this game throughout your child's education! Use it with more difficult words, more difficult math facts, vocabulary words or when they begin taking foreign language classes!

Valentine's Day

2012-01-30T22:09:00.001-06:00

I'll be sending home a list of students names this week. You do not have to label all of your child's Valentine's, but feel free to if you'd like. Have your child label the Valentine's to practice their handwriting and writing their classmates names. Since parents are already purchasing Valentine's, I will supply the treats for this party.

What are we doing?

2012-01-30T22:05:00.000-06:00

January 30-February 3
Today in reading, our class worked on writing stories about what they would do if they had $100. We discussed what $100 might buy and things that it would not buy. The students also worked on portraits of themselves now and one hundred years from now. During small group, the students wrote five things that they've learned in the last 100 days. We made a paper chain out of all of the things they've learned. Stop by our classroom to see the paper chain! During math, the students worked on counting and writing their numbers to 100 by filling in a 100s chart.
The rest of the week, we will be settling into our new reading groups. The students are working on writing personal narratives, stories about themselves, and making sure that they have capital letters and periods where they belong. Students are continuing to work on their bedrock words and word sorts. On Tuesdays, the students have become "word detectives"! They search for words in their books, on the word wall and in other places that fit our word sort for the week. They record their findings in a notebook.
***Things you can do at home: be a word detective with your child! Look for words in their books at home that match our word sort for the week. If you want, have your child write it down and put it on the refridgerator! Doing an activity like this makes students aware of spelling patterns that we see in all of our books.
We will be continuing our work with measuring in math. The last couple of weeks the students became "measuring masters" by learning to start at the beginning and measure to the end, leave no gaps and measure in a straight line. We started by measuring fish and deciding whether or not they were "keepers". This week, we'll be comparing measurements to see which line or object is longer.
***Things you can do at home: Compare how long things are at home. Ask if the kitchen counter is longer or shorter than another object in your home. Questions like this get students thinking about how long objects are in real life and how long they are in comparison to other objects.

Don't forget, book orders are due this Friday!

UNI Students

2012-01-30T21:51:00.001-06:00

Miss McAtee started in our classroom today! She was a great help during our 100th day celebration and we all look forward to having her back next Monday. We have another UNI student starting tomorrow. The students really enjoy having the extra help in our room so be sure to ask what your child learned about or got to do with our UNI students!

100th Day

2012-01-30T21:49:00.002-06:00

Check out our picture page to see some of the things we did to celebrate the 100th day of school! Be sure to also check out Poyner's website for pictures from the entire building. Mrs. Manternach visited our classroom during math and saw all of the counting we were working on. Mrs. Bass visited our classroom and read a story about the 100th day! Be sure to check your child's folder for some of the activities we did in class today! We didn't quite have time to finish the "What we can do in 100 seconds" activity. Help your child finish it at home and help them practice counting and writing their numbers to 100.

Upcoming Events

2012-01-25T22:43:00.003-06:00

January 30: 100th Day (look for pictures on our picture page)
January 30: UNI student starts in our room
January 31: Another UNI student starts in our room
February 1: Limo ride for students who sold more than 25 items during our Winter fundraiser. Be sure to sign and return the permission form if your student will be going on this trip!
February 3: Book orders due

Beginning Bloggers

2012-01-25T22:33:00.001-06:00

To those of you who are new to blogging, as I very much am, be sure to explore the whole page. I'm pretty sure that I am the only one who can create a post, but anyone should be able to comment. If you don't "follow" or "join" the blog, be sure to leave at least your first name when you leave a comment so I know who it came from. Please let me know if you encounter any problems with the blog or if there is anything else you would like to see included or have me take down.

Welcome!

2012-01-25T22:18:00.004-06:00

Welcome to our class' new site! Use this site to find ideas to use at home, share ideas that have worked for your child, share successes that your child has had this year, and ask questions. Please remember that this is a public blog, so do not share student's names and be sure to keep your posts and comments respectful. My goal for this site to make communication between parents and myself quicker and easier so we can work together to help your student achieve great things.