Hey Mr. Gray

Happy New Year!

Dear Families of Room F1,

We’re going to have a great upcoming week. Below is a short description of what’s coming up and important links and/or announcements:

Watch These Announcements on Video Here

Mr. Gray’s Class Podcast

Class Website

Reader’s

Workshop

We are getting back into routines for Reader’s Workshop. The kids will be reading fiction books of their choosing. We will review and practice: choosing “just right” books (and lifting the level of the books we read), improving reading stamina, best practices of individual conferences, and group work time.

Writer’s

Workshop

The kids will take time to organize and write about their experiences over the break. We will spend the next week on a creative writing mini-unit learning about the elements of stories (characters, setting, problem, and solution).

We will also do our first spelling unit (link to spelling words for practice). The kids will receive the words Tuesday, practice during the week, and take the quiz on Friday.

We will also start cursive. The kids will work in a practice book at school once a week.

Math

We will review multiplication and spend the next two weeks learning about area and perimeter as well as the similarities and differences between them.

Dear Families of Room F1,

We’re going to have a great upcoming week. Below is a short description of what’s coming up and important links and/or announcements:

Watch These Announcements on Video Here

Mr. Gray’s Class Podcast

Class Website

Reader’s

Workshop

We will work on some reading strategies for fiction books. We will discuss growing ideas about characters and books and backing those ideas up with evidence as well as understanding characters by putting ourselves in their shoes.

Writer’s

Workshop

The kids will publish their 3rd information book.

Math

What happened to math class?

We will review some of the multiplication work we have done over the last several weeks.

Social

Studies

No Social Studies this week.

Science

No Science this week.

Thank you,

Mr. Gray

Dear Families of Room F1,

We’re going to have a great upcoming week. Below is a short description of what’s coming up and important links and/or announcements:

Watch These Announcements on Video Here

Mr. Gray’s Class Podcast

Class Website

Reader’s

Workshop

We will work on some reading strategies for fiction books. We will discuss Character’s feelings and how those feelings change, back up ideas about characters with evidence and empathize to understand characters (putting myself in the character’s shoes). Students will keep post-its of their thinking in their Reader’s Notebook that include evidence from the text.

Writer’s

Workshop

The kids will continue work on their 3rd information book. Not only will students type the book on a google doc but we will work on ways to add text features to make their books more exciting.

Math

What happened to math class?

We will take a quiz on Wednesday about using multiplication in multiplication tables, finding the missing number, the distributive property, and multiplying single digit numbers by multiples of 10. We will review on Tuesday and kids can bring home their review to study.

Social

Studies

The students will continue studying the history of California looking at how California has changed over time and by studying the cultural history of California.

Science

No Science this week.

Thank you,

Mr. Gray

Dear Families of Room F1,

We’re going to have a great upcoming week. Below is a short description of what’s coming up and important links and/or announcements:

Watch These Announcements on Video Here

Mr. Gray’s Class Podcast

Class Website

Reader’s

Workshop

We will direct our attention for the week on narrative nonfiction and how it compares and contrasts with both nonfiction and fiction. We will visit the book fair on Tuesday!

Writer’s

Workshop

The kids will publish their 2nd information book and we may get to host an information fair to celebrate our work!

Math

What happened to math class?

We will continue studying multiplication facts and patterns. We have gotten through all the math facts 1-10 as far as instruction goes. Please keep practicing with the Multiplication and Division Facts Practice. We will begin to look at the connection between Multiplication and Division and start thinking about division as equal groups or equal sharing.

Social

Studies

The students will continue studying the history of early settlement in California and the southwest United States as well as the relationships both good and bad between early settlers and Native Americans.

Science

The kids will keep looking at forces. We will read about the forces involved in tug-of-war.

Thank you,

Mr. Gray

Dear Parents,

We’re going to have a great upcoming week. Below is a short description of what’s coming up and important links and/or announcements:

Watch These Announcements on Video Here

Mr. Gray’s Class Podcast

Class Website

Reader’s

Workshop

The kids will work on pulling information out of nonfiction texts. They will jot post-its in their notebook as they read about fascinating facts, questions they have, growing ideas, and making connections. We will also try to lift the level of conversations about books. Finally, we will transition to narrative nonfiction books for the last couple weeks of our nonfiction unit.

Writer’s

Workshop

As we continue our information books the students will be drafting sections and revise by researching facts and ensuring text accuracy, creating introductions through research mentor authors, and putting themselves in the shoes of readers to clear up confusion.

Math

What happened to math class?

We will continue studying multiplication facts and patterns. Specifically we will look at 3s and 6s. Keep practicing math facts with your students. Ask them what patterns exist for each set of numbers. 5-10 minutes a day will really help!

Social

Studies

The students will continue studying the history of early California. We will study early settlers in California and the effect of those settlers on American Indians.

Science

The kids will keep looking at forces. We will read about the forces involved in soccer and tug-of-war.

Thank you,

Dear Parents,

We’re going to have a great upcoming week. Below is a short description of what’s coming up and important links and/or announcements:

Watch These Announcements on Video Here

Mr. Gray’s Class Podcast

Class Website

Reader’s

Workshop

This week students will work on a few elements of being a great nonfiction reader: getting better by setting clear goals with a learning progression, approaching nonfiction as a learner, and distinguishing the reader’s opinion from the author. There will also be a short quiz to help me pinpoint areas of need.

Writer’s

Workshop

This week students will use a checklist to assess their own writing in their first attempt at information writing this year. As the kids write their next information book, they will try to make connections across chapters and create introductions. We will continue to use mentor texts (nonfiction chapter books) as examples for great pieces of writing.

Math

What happened to math class?

Students will continue to practice their multiplication facts. At this point, students should be spending a few minutes at home each day working with you practicing math facts. They can bring home their blue notebooks which not only have the math facts to practice but also examples of patterns and strategies students can use to practice.

Social

Studies

The kids will wrap up our current chapter: American Indians of California and move on to our next chapter: Changes in California over time. We will look at early exploration and early settlement of California and study some map skills looking at timelines.

Science

The students will continue studying the forces of pushing and pulling as well as designing a rollercoaster that uses gravity.

Thank you,

Mr. Gray

Dear Parents,

We’re going to have a great upcoming week. Below is a short description of what’s coming up and important links and/or announcements:

Watch These Announcements on Video Here

Mr. Gray’s Class Podcast

Class Website

October 25-29th is Red Ribbon Week!

Reader’s

Workshop

Starting Tuesday, the kids will go to the library to check out Nonfiction books, and then we will start a new unit on Nonfiction called “Reading to Learn”. Next week we will discuss prepping our mind for learning something when reading. The kids will learn to ask questions like “What will this mostly be about?” and “What sort of text is this?”. We will also discuss recalling prior knowledge before reading.

Writer’s

Workshop

The kids will continue our writing unit “The Art of Information Writing”. We will start off learning and writing different text structures: boxes and bullets, causes and effects, problems and solutions, pros and cons, and compare and contrast.

Math

What happened to math class?

We review strategies for learning and understanding math facts. We will start with Goal 1: 10s and 5s. Next week I’ll send out information on how we will manage keeping track of how students are meeting math fact goals and how parents can help at home.

Social

Studies

We will continue our next chapter in social studies: American Indians in California.

Science

The kids will continue studying forces, motion, gravity, friction, push, pull, and more.

Thank you,

Mr. Gray

Dear Parents,

We’re going to have a great upcoming week. Below is a short description of what’s coming up and important links and/or announcements:

Watch These Announcements on Video Here

Mr. Gray’s Class Podcast

Class Website

Reader’s

Workshop

The kids will go to the library on Tuesday and then work on a book report for the rest of the week. The instructions will come home on Tuesday. They should be able to finish using class time. The book report will be due on Monday, October 18th.

Writer’s

Workshop

The kids will work on their 3rd and final (for now) published narrative. This week we were trying to revise leads, dialogue, small details, and ending so I will look for those things in their final published piece. On Friday we will celebrate their writing.

Math

What happened to math class?

We review the foundations of multiplication we have looked at so far (repeated addition, skip counting on number lines, equal groups, and arrays) and introduce factor trees. The students will have a quiz on these on Thursday.

Social

Studies

We will start our next chapter in social studies: American Indians in California.

Science

The kids will begin our next unit in science. This unit is all about studying forces. We will start by observing the forces at work on the playground.

Thank you,

Mr. Gray

Dear Parents,

We’re going to have a great upcoming week. Below is a short description of what’s coming up and important links and/or announcements:

Watch These Announcements on Video Here

Mr. Gray’s Class Podcast

Class Website

Reader’s

Workshop

We are almost finished with our first fiction reading unit. We will wrap up looking at strategies for tackling hard words and then start a Book Report!

Writer’s

Workshop

The students will celebrate their 2 published works and then we will move on to the last part of our first writing unit. The challenge as they write their last few drafts and last published piece of this unit will be to try to focus in on a moment that was a real problem and show how the problem was overcome. We will also work on punctuating dialogue, revising, and revising endings by learning from published writing. The kids will publish their 3rd narrative and over the next couple of weeks we will transition to narrative writing.

Math

What happened to math class?

We will continue our introduction to multiplication. We will study how groups of items can be shown as arrays and factor trees. This will lead us into multiplication facts and area of rectangles over the next few weeks.

Social

Studies

TBD (because it’s such a short week).

Science

The kids will finish presenting their pet umbrellas and we may get to moving onto studying forces.

Thank you,

Mr. Gray

Dear Parents,

We’re going to have a great upcoming week. Below is a short description of what’s coming up and important links and/or announcements:

Watch These Announcements on Video Here

Mr. Gray’s Class Podcast

Class Website

Reader’s

Workshop

We will continue our first reading unit. We are almost finished with our first fiction reading unit. First the kids will take a reading assessment on Monday using a short story to check their progress. Then, as we continue through the week, the kids will climb the hurdle of hard words by learning some strategies for figuring out their meaning: chunking the words, using context clues, and going over some figurative language phrases. They will continue the things we have been working on including making mental movies, predicting, and retelling.

Writer’s

Workshop

The students will celebrate their 2 published works and then we will move on to the last part of our first writing unit. The challenge as they write their last few drafts and last published piece of this unit will be to try to focus in on a moment that was a real problem and show how the problem was overcome. Also, the kids are going to be more in charge of their writing. They will have to figure out what they need to do to improve and actually do it.

Math

What happened to math class?

The kids will start a unit on multiplication. We will start by thinking about groups of things. We will count by 10s and 5s and discuss subitizing.

Social

Studies

The kids will go over our last lesson of Chapter 1 which is about ecosystems and the resources California uses. After that we will review what we’ve learned and make something that represents the geographical features, regions and ecosystems of California.

Science

The kids will continue working on their pet umbrella with their group. They might present their project if we have time.

Thank you,

Mr. Gray