Room 103 Newsletter
November 2, 2009
Dear Families,
We’re heading to Popejoy Hall on the UNM campus to see the play “Strega Nona” tomorrow (11/3).
We’ll walk, carrying lunches, so please send a sack lunch with your child (I just had one school lunch
pre-order). Be sure to include a water bottle. We’ll eat on the grass near Popejoy, weather permitting;
otherwise we’ll take refuge in the SUB. It will be helpful to have no lunch boxes (disposable sacks only)
since we can’t take them into the theater. We’ll leave at 10:15 a.m. and be in the theater in time for
the 12:15 p.m. performance. We’ll walk back to Bandelier when the performance ends at around 1:15.
I’m told that the walk takes around 40 minutes. Comfortable walking shoes are a must! A big thanks to
the following family members who volunteered to walk along with us: Janell Katesigwa, Corinne
Sisneros, and Pete Henderson. The performance is sold out, so unfortunately we won’t be able to
accommodate any additional family members.
We’re sorry to be losing a member of our class, Dominic, whose family is moving. Best wishes,
Dominic; we’ll miss you!
Thank you, families who have sent in food for the school food drive. Food collection will continue
through Friday, November 13. Our class is using the food drive as a math activity. We are counting
cans and boxes as they come in, and using tally marks and addition to keep track of our progress.
We’re hoping to collect a mini-mountain of food to help out families in need.
What’s up in Room 103? We’re continuing to work on literacy skills including decoding, reading
comprehension, reading fluency, and writing skills throughout much of our day: morning message, The
Word Wall Show, Fundations, read aloud, reading groups, and centers. In math we’re working with
addition and subtraction number sentences, money, using tally marks, and odd and even numbers. I’m
introducing telling time to the half-hour this week. Another math focus is counting by 2’s, 5’s, and
10’s, as well as by 1’s, starting from various points. For example, we’ll count by 10’s to 50, then by 5’s
from 50 to 100. This kind of counting is a great way to build number sense, and is something that
children can do with you as they walk or drive to school. Centers this week include writing a full
sentence to describe either the beginning, middle, or end of the Strega Nona story (story analysis);
listening to the story A Dark Dark Tale at the class listening center and writing about what you would
like to find in “a dark, dark box” (response to literature); and designing an alien with odd and even
numbers of different body parts (number sense). Best wishes! Kak
