Happy New Year!

I hope everyone had a relaxing holiday.  It's hard to believe how quickly the breaks go!

We jumped right in this week, especially since it was only a four-day week.  We read a story called Big Bushy Mustache.  Though we have been talking about the differences between fiction and nonfiction all year, it was a main focus this week.  We know a song about fiction stories and a chant about nonfiction stories.  We found both kinds of books in our classroom library, and we sorted some of the stories we have read so far this year.  High frequency words for this week were above, shoes, tough, wash, wear, woman, and young.  Robust vocabulary words were route, semblance, distraught, and improvise.  We began talking about singular possessive nouns in language.  We discussed the difference between using an apostrophe to show ownership and just an s to make a word mean more than one.

Next week we will be reading Rainforest Babies.  We will continue to focus on identifying stories as fiction or nonfiction.  We will be completing a fact book with information about each of the baby animals we will read about.  High frequency words will be care, father, interesting, thumb, touch, and sweat.  Robust vocabulary words will be adorable, assortment, habitat, and immense.  We will continue singular possessive nouns, which I am hoping to wrap up toward the middle of the week.  At that point we will begin looking at plural possessive nouns.  Spelling words for next week will have the r-controlled vowel spelling patterns spelled ir, ur, er, or ear.  Remember that there are three options for spelling lists, so check the list in your child's traveling folder to confirm which words you should be studying.  Words are:
fur, shirt, burn, stir, bird, turn, herd, third, learn, search, perfect, birthday, purple, circus, surprise, try, kind, hand, picture, again
Challenge list:
perfect, birthday, purple, circus, surprise, birdhouse, person, flower, stirring, burned, thirty, dirty, plural, monster, search, try, kind, hand, picture, again

Our specials schedule for next week will be:
Monday - music
Tuesday - computer
Wednesday - art
Thursday - music
Friday - gym

Stay warm this weekend!