Mrs. Friedman

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Visit the TeacherWeb® videos to learn about the features, modifications, and customizations available on your website. Click here to learn more. November News You are currently using the Homework With Text Formatting page type. This is an old page type with limited formatting options. We would recommend switching to the Enhanced Text page, a more advanced page type with many more options. Click here for more information on the different page types. Please note: You may continue to use this page type if you desire. <SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'"><FONT size=2><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'"><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'"> <P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'"><SPAN style="mso-tab-count: 1"><FONT size=2></FONT></SPAN><?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p></SPAN></P> <P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'"><FONT size=2>Dear Parents,<SPAN style="mso-tab-count: 1"> </SPAN><o:p></o:p></FONT></SPAN></P> <P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'"><o:p><FONT size=2> </FONT></o:p></SPAN></P> <P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in"><FONT size=2><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'">November was a busy month for us.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>We enjoyed a read aloud by a guest reader from our community.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>We listened to a trio of musicians and learned the roots of the music we listen to in our country.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Our Thanksgiving Food Basket Project kept us hopping as the children and I spent time in the classroom discussing appropriate chores to earn money, compiled a list of healthy and seasonal foods to place in our basket and looked through Market Basket circulars to find prices for all the items.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Each child chose an item or items to purchase with the money he/she earned.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I would like to thank all of you for supporting this project by paying the children for the chores they did around the house and taking them to the supermarket to purchase the items they selected to contribute.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>The children also wrote cards to the recipients and decorated the boxes in which we put the food.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Special thanks to Mr. and Mrs. Hardock for packing the boxes for us.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I think the children learned many important lessons about the needs of others and how fortunate they are to grow up in a community like </SPAN><?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" /><st1:City><st1:place><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'">Andover</SPAN></st1:place></st1:City><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'">.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN><o:p></o:p></SPAN></FONT></P> <P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in"><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'"><o:p><FONT size=2> </FONT></o:p></SPAN></P> <P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in"><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'"><FONT size=2>Unit 3 in Math focuses on four topics introduced in first grade:<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>numeration and place value, money, time and data collection and analysis.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>The lessons on numeration and place value provided the opportunity to assess whether children could tell how many ones, tens and hundreds are in a given number and whether they could write numbers if given the number of ones, tens and hundreds.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Children are continually reminded that numbers are used to describe something that is identified by a label or a unit.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>The lessons on money served as a vehicle for adding and subtracting 2-digit numbers using actual coins and play dollar bills.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>These activities prepare children for the focus on mental arithmetic in Unit 4 in mid-December.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Children worked with partners to solve number stories about money.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>We learned time to 5 minute intervals and quarter hour intervals and equivalent names for the same time, such as 7:15, quarter after 7:00, 15 minutes after 7:00, etc.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Data collection and analysis was fun as we counted pockets, tallied the results, identified the middle value (median), the most common number (mode) and created a bar graph.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>We began Math Art this month by creating WANTED posters for a particular number.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Each child drew a “mug shot” of his/her number and listed at least four descriptions of the number, such as how many digits, odd or even, equivalent numbers, etc.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>The posters are currently hanging in our hallway, and we have received many compliments from other teachers in our wing.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Special thanks to Mrs. Comparato for her help with the project.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Math Games began on the last day of November in which the children played three different games with partners.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>We practiced exchanging coins, telling time and place value.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Special thanks to Mrs. Russell for her help.<o:p></o:p></FONT></SPAN></P> <P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in"><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'"><o:p><FONT size=2> </FONT></o:p></SPAN></P> <P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in"><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'"><FONT size=2>In our guided reading groups, we are working on comprehension strategies, such as character analysis and cause and effect.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>In Poetry, we read “Thanksgiving”, a list poem of thanks using the senses.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>The children are writing their own poems of thanks using the same format.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>We talked about the use of exclamation points after an “excited” word or after a sentence that shows strong feeling.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>The children imagined what they would say if they found themselves in a dark, dark cave, and they each wrote a sentence ending with an exclamation point in a speech bubble.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>They also drew a picture of their faces expressing feeling of fear and surprise.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Finally, we are learning how to craft a paragraph with an indented topic sentence, body with at least three details and a closing sentence.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>In spelling, we introduced words that have 2 vowels together (<B style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal">vowel combinations</B>) such as <B style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal">ai, ay, </B>and <B style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal">oo</B>.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>We are studying how to form the past tense and reviewed the suffix –<B style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal">ed</B>.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN><o:p></o:p></FONT></SPAN></P> <P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in"><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'"><o:p><FONT size=2> </FONT></o:p></SPAN></P> <P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT size=2><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'"><SPAN style="mso-tab-count: 1"> </SPAN>To prepare for our field trip to Drumlin Farm in </SPAN><st1:place><st1:City><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'">Lincoln</SPAN></st1:City><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'">, </SPAN><st1:State><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'">MA</SPAN></st1:State></st1:place><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'">, we read about natural resources in our SS books.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>We learned how we use them to provide for our daily needs – food, air, water, shelter and clothing.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>On our field trip, we learned how the Native Americans in our region used natural resources to provide for their needs.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>To culminate the unit, we read the story, <B style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><U>The Goat in the Rug</U></B>, about a Navajo weaver who combines natural and capital resources to weave a rug.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>The story takes place in Window Rock, a desert region of </SPAN><st1:State><st1:place><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'">Arizona</SPAN></st1:place></st1:State><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'"> where resources are limited or scarce.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>We located Window Rock on a </SPAN><st1:country-region><st1:place><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'">US</SPAN></st1:place></st1:country-region><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'"> map.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></FONT></P> <P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt"><o:p><FONT face="Times New Roman"> </FONT></o:p></SPAN></P> <P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in"><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'"><FONT size=2>In Social Studies, we reviewed what the children learned about Pilgrims in Grade 1 - how they dressed, what they ate, what was important to them and why they left their homeland.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>We looked at pictures of traditional pilgrims from books about the first Thanksgiving.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>We then read <B style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><U>Molly’s Pilgrim</U></B> and compared and contrasted the original Pilgrims to modern day Pilgrims like Molly’s mother in the story.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>In Science, the children created simple and then more complex mobiles.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>They problem solved how to balance their mobiles by either adjusting the weight or moving the fulcrum.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN><o:p></o:p></FONT></SPAN></P> <P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in"><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'"><o:p><FONT size=2> </FONT></o:p></SPAN></P> <P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in"><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'"><FONT size=2>Another new activity this month is the Problem Solver Program.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It is a step-by-step instructional program designed to help the children become competent and confident problem solvers.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It utilizes an easy-to-learn method combined with ten useful problem solving strategies, such as logical reasoning, making an organized list, guess and check, use or look for a pattern, etc.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>A wide range of reproducible problems are carefully sequenced to systematically expand the children’s problem solving ability.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>The children are enjoying solving the problems, which have been fairly simple so far.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN><o:p></o:p></FONT></SPAN></P> <P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in"><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'"><o:p><FONT size=2> </FONT></o:p></SPAN></P> <P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in"><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'"><FONT size=2>Finally, it was a pleasure meeting with you at the Parent-Teacher Conferences this month.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>It is a wonderful opportunity for both of us to share our observations about your children.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I learn as much from you as I hope you learned from me.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>I view the education of your children as a partnership between us, and the closer we work together, the more your children will benefit.<o:p></o:p></FONT></SPAN></P> <P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in"><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'"><o:p><FONT size=2> </FONT></o:p></SPAN></P> <P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'"><FONT size=2><SPAN style="mso-tab-count: 1"> </SPAN>I hope everyone had a happy and healthy Thanksgiving.<o:p></o:p></FONT></SPAN></P> <P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'"><o:p><FONT size=2> </FONT></o:p></SPAN></P> <P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><FONT size=2><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'"><SPAN style="mso-tab-count: 5"> </SPAN>Joan </SPAN><st1:PersonName><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'">Friedman</SPAN></st1:PersonName><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'"><o:p></o:p></SPAN></FONT></P> <P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'"><o:p><FONT size=2> </FONT></o:p></SPAN></P> <P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'"><FONT size=2><SPAN style="mso-tab-count: 1"> </SPAN><SPAN style="mso-tab-count: 7"> </SPAN><o:p></o:p></FONT></SPAN></P> <P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'"><FONT size=2><SPAN style="mso-tab-count: 1"> </SPAN><o:p></o:p></FONT></SPAN></P> <P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"><SPAN style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Comic Sans MS'"><o:p><FONT size=2> </FONT></o:p></SPAN></P> <P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt"></SPAN></SPAN></SPAN></P></SPAN></FONT></SPAN> Or, would you like to view and optionally restore one of these previous versions? 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Mrs. Friedman

November News

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