This week...

Hello! I hope you are all enjoying the craziness of 'Drug Free' week, 'Fire Safety' Week AND Halloween as much as me. :)

Here is a summary of what's going on in class this week.

We are reading a Non-Fiction text about Helen Keller. We are still studying the text elements and comparing them to Fiction. Of course, Fiction is NOT real and Non-Fiction is real. Each group (except group 5) has a Non-Fiction Guided Reading book. Please make sure they are reading this at home. It will greatly help them be able to recognize and distinguish Fiction from Non-Fiction.

Sentences... oh sentences!!! We are trying writing sentences. We have learned the words declarative, interrogative and exclamatory this week. Today we wrote sentences about Helen Keller using each type of sentence. Please, if you have time at home, work on this with your student. They REALLY struggle with sentence formation... especially interrogative (asking) sentences. Have them form interrogative sentences using our questions words how, when, where, why, what, etc... Also, make sure they are capitalizing the first word of the sentence and that's ALL! The only exception is Proper Nouns (name of person, place or thing). They seem to want to capitalize random words in the middle of the sentence.

Dictionary skills (believe it or not) is one of the skills that a second must obtain. Today we dusted off the old dictionary and put it to use. We looked up our spelling words, figured out what the guide words were AND even locate what part of speech it was. If you have an dictionary at home, PLEASE look up a few words each night and help your student. The small amount of time I get to cover this in class is NOT near enough and it's a very hard concept for young minds... especially those who haven't mastered ABC order.

We took a Math test over Graphs today. Hopefully we did as well as we been in class. We will be starting Time on Wednesday. I love the Telling Time unit, there are so many fun things to do and before they know it, they've learned something!!

This week is Fire Safety week as I mentioned above. They had an assembly with 3 firemen today. It was very informational. Let them share with you what they learned.

It is also Drug Free week. I know many of them are too young to truly understand the impact that drugs can have on a person, their body and their family. If you would like, talk to your kids about taking care of their bodies so they can be healthy their entire life!

Here is the schedule for the remainder of the week...
Wednesday - Camo Day
Thursday - wear shades and a cap to "shade out" drugs
Friday - Apache spirit day!

Have a great rest of the week,

Mrs. Hilbig

Lucky Charm Graphs!

We've been working super hard at graphing this week. We've made graphs of our favorite sports, our favorite ice cream, our favorite food… we even "surveyed" each other on our favorite thing to do on the weekend! But, I think graphing the Lucky Charms was their favorite. Here are a few of the sweeties hard at work. Enjoy :)

Better Late Than Never

Sorry this weeks post is coming to you on Tuesday (probably Wednesday for some)!! Better late than never, right!?!?!

Alright, this week in our class....

Spelling - contractions! We are working with two words that can be put together with an apostrophe to make one word... examples: cannot/can't, she will/she'll, I am/I'm. Please see that your child studies each night! I hope your student is enjoying the new tic-tac-toe they received on Monday.

Grammar - Articles a/an. Some kiddos are still struggling with this. The important thing to remember is that a comes before a word that starts with a consonant and an comes before word that starts with a vowel. Examples: I am going to the zoo to see an elephant. / I am going to the zoo to see a zebra.

Reading - We are studying text features of non-fiction; glossary, index, photographs, titles, captions, table of contents, etc... We are reading 'The Harbor Seal Pup Grows Up' and will be looking at other non-fiction texts as well.

Writing - Students are writing daily in their journals. We have especially been working on summarizing. In the beginning of the year we referred to this concepts as "BME" which stands for beginning, middle, end. Now we are trying to use our "BME" and create a summary (4-6 sentences) about the story. It is going well but our handwriting and penmanship still needs some practice.

Math - On Friday we took a Number Line test. Those came  home today for corrections. They didn't do as well as anticipated on this test. We had a long talk today in class about READING DIRECTIONS. I think (for the most part) that was the issue. The test was not difficult and I knew they could have done better from the daily work I saw in class. We talked about how we are going to start really looking at what the question is asking for and not what WE THINK the answer should be.

We started graphs on Monday. They are doing very well and the homework from last night looked great! We are studying Pictographs, Picture Graphs, Bar Graphs and Tally Graphs. We will test on this topic Monday and then begin our two weeks of working with time and temperature. This is always a fun unit!

Please see that your child practices their flashcards nightly. I know they also have AR, Guided Reading books, and spelling ... but these basic facts are SO important. We have to have one-digit addition & subtraction memorized before we start two-digit addition & subtraction. I still see a lot of counting on fingers when we do basic facts each day.

Corrections: Remember, ANYTHING below a 70 can be corrected and returned for a 70 (with correct answers)!!! They have to be turned in by the last Thursday of the 6 weeks so I have time to grade and make changes in the grade book!!!

Next week is Drug Free Week. I will be sending home a note about how we will participate in Drug Free Week at GE!

As always, feel free to contact me at school 672-1467 ext 5402 or by email @ kaley.hilbig@gonzales.txed.net.

Have a great hump day!

Mrs. Hilbig

Parent Conferences, Open House, Book Fair, Master Gardeners

We just finished up our parent conferences on Friday for report cards. It went well and we will be doing it again for the 4th six weeks in January. I hope the everything went smooth for the parents as well. Please give us your feedback of what you think can be changed/done differently.

This week is the Scholastic Book Fair at school. We will be doing a "preview" day on Monday where the students can visits to see what they might be interested in buying. Then on Thursday we will go back to purchase. Only those who bring money to purchase will be able to go back on Thursday. This will be the only time DURING the day they may go.

Tuesday night is open house at GE. We will be having a Reading Fair for the first time at our school. Our class is working on a story board for the book "David's New Friends". You may have seen it in the classroom on Friday. They all have a part in completing it! Hopefully we will win...come to Open House Tuesday from 5-7 to find out!

We are also starting a cooperative learning program with the Gonzales Master Gardeners. We are very excited to get the opportunity to work with them and learn about plants as part of our Science curriculum.

I hope everyone has a great week! What a nice, relaxing Sunday with all this rain.
See you Tuesday.    Mrs. Hilbig

Lesson Plans Oct 14-18

I had some requests during the parent conference to be more specific about what is being covered in class. Here is a copy of my lesson plan for the week. This may or may not help... let me know if you have any additional questions.

Monday

Like Columbus -Intro-meaning

FICTION Nitik, the Wolf Pup  pg. 290 TxTreasures Unit 5 -inferences about characters’ traits, motivations, and feelings -Use evidence from text  *characteristics of genre *complete inference chart in journal

Daily 5 -Read to Self -Work on Writing (Christopher Columbus writing activity) -Read to Someone -Word Work  (Columbus Fill in the Blank) -Listen to Reading

Adverbs- -create anchor chart -Adverb Sentences

Generate ideas through a range of strategies. Select idea then generate ideas about 0wn experiences to the ideas Nitik, the Wolf Pup

Tuesday    Master Gardeners  12:30-1:30

Like Columbus -vocabulary  pleas, onward

FICTION Nitik, the Wolf Pup  pg. 290  -5 Finger Retell  Who, What, When, Where, Why (in journal)

Daily 5 -Read to Self -Work on Writing (Retell Nitik The Wolf Pup)  -Read to Someone -Word Work (whiteboards) -Listen to Reading

Adverbs -chain link

Students decide intended goal of their writing.(entertain, explain, describe, inform, respond, or persuade)

Wednesday

Like Columbus Discuss quotation marks

FICTION Nitik, the Wolf Pup  pg. 290  - Make inferences by completing sentences in journal *Amaroq feels______. * He feels this way because_________. *I know because______.

Daily 5 -Read to Self -Work on Writing (Respond connections and comments- txt to self) -Read to Someone -Word Work  (use spelling words in sentence) -Listen to Reading

Adverbs -create tree using  adverbs

Develop drafts and sequence ideas to organize writing.

Thursday

Like Columbus -Rhyme; stanzas

FICTION Nitik, the Wolf Pup  *plot (main events leading to problem) *complete story map

Daily 5 -Read to Self -Work on Writing (complete unfinished writing from plot/story map) -Read to Someone -Word Work (spell to someone) -Listen to Reading

Adverbs -How, When, Where Adverb Sentences  in journal

Revise drafts: add or delete words, add sensory detail or descriptive words, delete phrases, and add time order words

Friday      Math/Science Social Studies Math Monday Book Fair  Binder: Basic Facts, Daily Practice, Skills Unit 4 – Number Lines: YouTube NumberLines Columbus’ Missing Numbers (skip counting) Tuesday      Binder: Basic Facts, Daily Practice, Skills Unit 4 – (Env 16 1&2) Numbers to 999 on Number Lines Missing Numbers on the NumberLine – Number Line Race (spinner game) Wednesday     Binders: Basic Facts, Daily Practice, Skills Unit 4 – (Env. 16-3)Skip Counting on a Number Line  Number Line Hunt (find missing numbers) Thursday     Binder: Basic Facts, Daily Practice, Skills  Unit 4 – (Env 16 -4) Finding Patterns on a Number Line  Skip counting vertically (thermometer) Skip counting in a circle (clock) Friday      Binder: Basic Facts, Daily Practice, Skills  Unit 4 Math Test- Number Lines

Like Columbus- Comprehension -illustration

FICTION Nitik, the Wolf Pup   Author’s Purpose – Chorally read pg. 310. Ask how the author, Jean Craighead created her characters and where the illustrator, Ted Rand got ideas for his illustrations.  Nitik, the Wolf Pup   Assessment

Daily 5 -Read to Self -Work on Writing (work on revisions) -Read to Someone -Word Work (noun, verb, adj, adverb sort)  -Listen to Reading

Adverbs Assessment  -Example/Non Example Sort

Final Copy

Oct. 7-11

Coming up this week in room 402....

Spelling - /r/ controlled words & words that end in 'ar' and 'or'. Lists will be going home tomorrow.  Please make sure your students is studying these words nightly. They must provide documentation on Friday that they studied their words during the week. There are students who are not doing so and their spelling test grades are a reflection of this. This is very important and only takes about 15 each night!

**The spelling re-test is TOMORROW (Oct. 7) because all grades are due electronically by 4pm. This test is over inflectional endings. I also sent home the spelling test on Friday for a parents signature if your child did not pass. Please sign and return.

Reading/Writing - We are learning about adjectives and how they describe nouns. We will be doing several fun activities using adjectives. We are also reading our first fiction text in class, "David's New Friends", and looking at the characteristics of fiction text as well as studying characters, plot, and setting.

Guided Reading - On Friday I sent home leveled Guided Reading books with each child. Their assignment over the weekend was to become familiar with the text in the beginning of their book. I hope they have done and are continuing to do so, in addition to their library books. These guided reading books are key to improving their accuracy and fluency skills while we work in small group each day.

Math - We are still finishing up our Place Value unit. We will look at ordering numbers and adding 10 more/10 less on Monday, review for our test on Tuesday, and our Unit 3 test will be Wednesday. I am sending home their Math journals to study. It would be wonderful if you and your child sat down and went over the content.

Science - In Science we will be studying physical properties and types of matter. This is a fun unit to explore and discover that matter is all around us!


I hope everyone had a safe and fun Come & Take It weekend!
Mrs. Hilbig

G.E. is HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY

GE wins again! Wednesday night at the community pep rally we claimed the spirit stick for the 4th year in a row! I would certainly say we are all very HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY! We even had a visit from the Duck Dynasty boys :)

 Our principals were pretty excited about the win, too!