Dear Parents,

How was your weekend?  I can’t believe that the seventh week of this quarter is here. Your scholars are learning so much. This is a brief look at our week:

LANGUAGE ARTS  

SPALDING – We will continue with our spelling list this week. Please, review homework as they come home.

List 1: I, as, send, alone, lone, one, has, some, if, how, her, them, other, baby, well

List 2: about, men, man, for, ran, run, was, that, his, led, lay, apple, ate,, author, bread

List 3: brown, dog, eats, fast, food, jump, sleep, wash, yellow, nine, face, miss, rides, ride, tree

List 4: sick, got, north, white, spent, foot, feet, flows, blow, block, spring, river, planted, plant, cut

READING – READING STRATEGY: We will continue to explore making connections and visualizing as a reading strategy in the new week. As children read, they will be encouraged to make mental pictures that can help them construct meaning as well as make connections. We finished chapter eighteen in Charlotte’s Web. We will move on to the the last chapters of the book .  

 POETRY : Title: “Where Go the Boats” is our poem for this week again. It can be found in Harp and Laurel Wreath pg. 29 (Students will memorize poem and say it together by memory at the end of the month.) unbelievably, more than half of the class have recited this poems by heart. I am so impressed with our scholars. I will encourage more students to recite individually this week.

Author: Robert Louis Stevenson

SAYING: “keep your fingers crossed,” is  our saying.  We will appreciate it if you use it at home because children retain sayings when they engage in it through meaningful use.

           

GRAMMAR/VOCABULARY – This week, we will continue to learn about verbs: helping verbs. I will make effort to point out examples of these types of verb in their writing or reading so they can make connections. Last week, we introduced types of sentences. This week, we will learn the use of commas.

WRITING – As we work with Writing With Ease , students will continue to develop narration, dictation and copy work skills. They will come home this weekend with writing homework. We are asking that you follow the directions given by reading the story with your child, have them do a summary, and then dictate a short sentence to them.

LEVELED READERS

Please, encourage your scholars to take their readings seriously. Beginning this week, there is a comprehension question log for their readers. Have them fill it out. It’s not how much they write that matters, but how well it is written

MATH

Last week, we started addition with renaming. It’s amazing how some of the kids transformed from not getting the concept into understanding the concept pretty well. Please, encourage them to practice at home all the time. We will begin subtraction with renaming this week.

           

SCIENCE

We will begin water cycle in science. I encourage them to bring books that they have at home that they can share about any content area we are learning. We will explore liquid, solid and gas, and then we will talk about evaporation. We will also do some water experiment during this unit.

GEOGRAPHY OF THE AMERICAS

         Last week, we learned about The Indus civilization, Hinduism as a religion, and the celebration of the Festival of lights. This week we will learn about Buddhism and the emperor that helped spread Buddhism in India. We will read some Jakata tales, and we will end the unit on India. I have carefully added notes to every lesson that children can review at home. Their History packets will come home every weekend for review. Please, go over review questions with them.

VIRTUE

Responsibility

To hold yourself morally accountable for actions within your control.

OWN your actions

I am sure our parent volunteers agree with me that our first week of guided reading and Math groups went well. The kids acted responsibly, and they lived up to expectations. I am proud of them. For me personally, I encourage them to give their best at all times, and I hold them accountable for their actions.

Quote

  The noblest search is the search for excellence.

                                                      - Lyndon B. Johnson

Announcements

·      We will continue guided reading on Tuesday this week. I look forward to having parent volunteers in the classroom.

·      Guided reading will be  on Tuesdays and Wednesday. On Tuesday, it will be 12:30 – 1:30pm (60mins) On Wednesdays; it will be 11:50am -12:50pm (60 mins). We will also begin Math groups on Wednesday mornings starting this week  at 8:05-9:05 am.

·      We will begin our benchmark tests for Math and Reading. This test will be taken three times throughout the year. This is done to measure growth through out the year. Your students do not have to study for these two tests. It will be done on Monday.

·      Friday is half day.

·      During guided reading, children will be doing a Language Arts quiz that will be graded on a weekly basis. Encourage your scholar to complete their packets

·      We now have a wish list for our class. I will update it from time-to -time.

·      Top on my wish list is a collection of chapter books for the classroom. By second semester, I would love to completely phase most student into reading longer texts, hoping that they would have learned enough comprehension skills that will help them understand longer texts.

Thank you for all the encouraging words and support!

Sincerely,

Ms. Toyin & Ms. Peterson