Mrs. Hettesheimer's Class - mrshettesheimersclass

We have been busy writers publishing our small moment stories!  The most impressive part of our workshop this week was watching the students give each other feedback about their stories.  They are really starting to notice all the ingredients of a small moment story.  They communicate with their friends in a very encouraging way!  As I always say, they are truly AMAZING! 

  Although we will continue to revisit small moments throughout the year, I have been reading persuasive stories so that when we are ready to switch gears to persuasive writing next week, they will have some ideas of how to get started.

During literacy time, we reviewed our reading strategies.  Some of our literacy activities tied into our 100th day of school celebration.  The 100 projects turned out fantastic.  Everyone enjoyed sharing his or her project.  Thank you for helping your child with his or her project.  Clever ideas!!!!!!!!   We enjoyed making a 100 item trail mix by creating groups of 10, and counting by 1's and 10's to 100.

We learned all about Martin Luther King, Jr. and focused on how he made a difference by using his words.  He shared his dream/vision with others and changed our country.  We gathered more information about Martin Luther King,Jr. through websites such as Brainpop, Jr. and Go Pebble Go. The students wrote facts about him, and also wrote about their own dreams for the future.

Thank you all for always making sure your child does his or her reading homework.  The children are always so eager to take home their books to share with you!  Thank you for all you do!

Have a wonderful weekend.

Heather Hettesheimer & Amy Walton

Dear Parents,

We are getting ready to wrap up “small moment” stories in the next couple of weeks.  Each child will choose a book to publish and we will have a small celebration.  Our next writing unit will be persuasive writing. 

Literacy time was busy as we read non-fiction books about the sun and the moon.  We applied our comprehension skills to recall the information and wrote  sentences about the sun and moon.  We continue to   emphasize writing conventions such as beginning a  sentence with an uppercase letter, spacing and using punctuation to end our sentences.  Other reading   activities included a rhyming Pictionary hunt, a sorting word hunt, and word work activities.

During math we worked with tally marks, the dime and combinations to five to build number sense and practice addition.  We have also added some additional, more challenging concepts to our calendar time.   Our 100th day of school is on Thursday.  It will be a week of  100 activities & counting! 

When we return on Tuesday, we will learn about Martin Luther King, Jr. 

Homework:

**Raz kids online reading

Daily reading*

The students are making   amazing progress with  reading.  Their books are longer with  somewhat more difficult text.   Please continue to read each night for homework.

Daily sight word practice:

Your child has been working hard on the sight word list  located on the book envelope.   Now that many words have been mastered, our next goal is to increase the speed of   recognition.  For the GKIDS  assessment, this is a timed test.   It will also help reading fluency.

*100 day homework  due 1/19 or before.

Remember, Monday is a holiday.  We look forward to seeing everyone back on Tuesday.  Have a wonderful weekend....stay warm!

We started of our week with our fabulous High Touch High Tech in-school field trip.  Students learned about push, pull, friction and gravity with hands on learning activities with "Scientist C".

The class always knocks my socks off with their writing!  This week we learned another strategy to help us add greater details to our stories...adding action details!  This strategy is challenging, but I can already see it changing their stories.

During math we were busy creating number sets and adding the sets of objects.  We also did a review of our number words and teen numbers.  Thank you all for helping your child complete the math exemplar homework.  We also did another exemplar in class this week. 

We looked closely at how punctuation affects our reading during Reader's Workshop.  The text in their reading books is filled with quotation marks and characters speaking, and it can affect comprehension if not read correctly.  We did several strategy lessons to help the students practice reading fluently and with expression.

One more week until our winter break!  Puckett's Mill will be busy next week.  On Monday, we have our holiday party from 11:30-12:30.  Our wonderful room moms, Mrs. Guy and Mrs. Cropp, have planned some fun holiday crafts, games and a snack for the class.  Please remember to send in a wrapped book ( approx. $5 value) for the book exchange.

Tuesday through Thursday we will be packing our bags & passports and setting off to far off countries to learn more about how the rest of the world celebrates the holidays.  It will give us another chance to explore our map and globe skills as we learn more about our world!

Finally, Friday is PAJAMA DAY and HAT DAY, and after Friday I will be settling in for a LONG winter's nap! 

I am sure you heard the great news...we have a new student, Nicole Clayton!  We would like to welcome  Nicole and the Claytons to our classroom family!

As always, I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!  Remember, help your child be on the "lookout" for small moment stories as you are out and about doing fun things.  One sweet student this week told her mom after a cookie swap, "I am so glad we did this, because I can write all about it during Writer's Workshop!"  Made my day!

Check the picture tab for some great High Touch High Tech photos.

Thanks,

Heather Hettesheimer

It was wonderful to see the children back and well rested from the holiday break.  First thing on Monday morning we shared tales from our holiday adventures and each student created a list of ideas to write about during Writer’s Workshop.  Now that the students have the structure of a small moment (beginning,  middle, end, staying in the moment, and adding important   details), we were able to focus all the writing lessons on how to make our writing easier to read.  We learned how to check for spaces, how to use periods, exclamation points and question marks.  We also emphasized using the word wall to spell our sight words and took a closer look at our handwriting.  These skills take time to develop, but we will now be placing a greater emphasis on using these conventions.

We tackled some important strategies during reader’s workshop as well.  We learned how to try “flipping” letter sounds for letters that share two sounds (vowels, y, c and g).  We also took a closer look at quotation marks and how they affect our  reading.

During math we were busy adding number combinations /sets using manipulatives. 

We started our Science unit on forces, and will have our in -school field trip on Monday with High Touch High Tech to learn more about forces at work.

Additional news can be found in our newsletter saved under "files".

Thanks!

Heather Hettesheimer

Hope your holiday is filled with many blessings with family and friends!  I added some photos from our feast, and I have also attached the newsletter under the files section.   Please check out our latest class video for a message of thanks!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Mrs. H.

We spent our week learning about Veteran's Day and were honored to have Patricia Grace's grandfather, Mr. Carr and Elligrace's Dad, Mr. Mitchell visit our classroom and talk about the time they spent protecting our freedoms and our country.  We are grateful to them both for taking the time to allow us to use our inquiry skills and to learn from them.  Mr. Carr and Mr. Mitchell led by example as they modeled courage, patriotism and loyalty.  Happy Veteran's Day!

During Writer's Workshop, we learned how to add the "inside story" to our small moment stories.  We had some fabulous stories to share in the author's chair!  Our Reader's Workshop time was filled with story retelling using time words such as beginning, middle, end, first, next and last.  In math we were busy with number sense and number word activities.

Homework Project:  Please remember that the research homework for the clothing of the Pilgrims and Native Americans is due on Thursday as we prepare for our Thanksgiving feast at 11:30 on 11/17 in the kindergarten hallway.  We cannot wait to see your little ones dressed for our feast!

Have a wonderful weekend!

Mrs. Hettesheimer

After music, the students could not wait to share their new song with me!  Here they are shining with their musical talents!

Remember, tomorrow is silly sock day!

I am excited that we are able to start our website. It will be a great tool for sharing videos from our classroom.  Check out our first video creation.... a digitable book about making connections when reading books!

Red ribbon week is underway.  Please remember that Wednesday is "wear red day" and Thursday is silly sock day.