I will do a read-aloud at 4:00pm-4:30pm on Wednesday at Barnes and Noble. Please, join us there.

Dear Parents,

How are you all? I hope you had a great weekend. I am so excited to share the fun week we have ahead of us with you. Here is a quick summary of the week:

Book fair  - Please, come out and support the school from 4:00-8:00pm on 10/29/14. Please, remember to sign-up to donate a book to the class, then join us on wednesday at the book fair to purchase the book. I have emailed bookfair info to you all. Please, remember to take in your vouchers, so that the school can get a certain percentage of the proceeds. If you cannot make it to the book fair at Dana Park, vistit: BN.COM/bookfairs to support us online from 10/29/14 to 10/30/14 by entering Bookfair ID 11475894 at check out.

Read-a-thon Plan : The Read-a-thon will begin at 11:45am officially. Please, feel free to sign-up for 15min slots to come in and read to the whole class. Our seniors from Arete Prep will come in and read from 1:30 - 1:45. Mr. Gillingham will read from 12:45-12:55. Parents can fill up the other spots. We will have a break after the seniors read at 1:45-2:15 for snack. We welcome snack (chips, popcorn, 100% juice boxes, crackers and granola bars) donations from parents for the class. Please, expect two sign-up genius links from our classroom moms: Mrs. Lavell and Mrs. Everhart.

Read-a-thon costume proposals - students need to turn in a written proposal describing their costume, and the book it is from. We want to encourage excitement about the books in our curriculum! I will write comments and send them home if the costume idea needs to be tweaked. If your student has turned in a costume proposal and I do not send it back home by Tuesday, it is safe to assume that the proposal was approved! If your student is choosing not to dress up for the Read-a-thon they need to be in full uniform. Please, let me know if you have any questions, or need ideas on this topic

LANGUAGE ARTS  

SPALDING – We will continue with our spelling list this week. We have slowed down the spelling pace again because we have now started our second grade-spelling list. Please, review homework as they come home.

List 1: part, still, place, report, never, found, side, kind, life, here

  

List 2: car, word, every, under, most, made, said, says, say, work

List 3: our, more, when, from, form, wind, wind, print, air, fill

  

READING – READING STRATEGY: Our reading strategy this week will be making inferences and drawing conclusions. We will do a comprehension quiz on characterization this week. We will continue with chapters 3 & 4 in The Boxcar Children .

POETRY: Title: We will begin our recitals. Students will recite it individually by memory beginning this week.  Please, remind your scholars that we will grade their recitals.

SAYING: “Where there is a will there’s a way.”  We will appreciate it if you use it at home because children retain sayings when they engage in it through meaningful use.

           

GRAMMAR/VOCABULARY – Students will learn about adjectives, and we will continue to review contractions.

WRITING – As we work with Writing With Ease, students will continue to develop narration, dictation and copy work skills. As the narration and dictation homework goes home every week, we are asking that you help us pay attention to proof reading their work. I really want to suggest that you encourage your scholars to write a sentence every day, and have them look back and correct their mistakes. I really want to create awareness to writing this quarter.

LEVELED READERS

Please, encourage your scholars to take their readings seriously. Their reflection logs will go home for the second time this week. There are three pages of reflection and three books. They are expected to log in one book per page. Please, remind them to write the title of the text on the page they work on. We have seen some excellent writing skills thus far.

MATH

Math has been so much fun. We learned how to measure length in centimeters last week. We also measured the length of curved lines. Students learned how to use tape measure as well. In this new week, the focus will be on measuring in yards, feet, and inches.  Please, encourage your scholars to practice at home.

SCIENCE

We will finish our unit on four types of clouds: Cumulus, cirrus, stratus, and cumulonimbus clouds. A short information sheet on Clouds and the water cycle went home last week. It will come home again this week. Please, have them read it and share some facts from the reading with you.

HISTORY

        We will wrap-up our Chinese unit by learning about great inventions from China. We will also talk about the Chinese festival and do a general review of the unit.

VIRTUE

Perseverance

To maintain a steadfast purpose in a work in spite of difficulty, obstacles, or discouragement.

NEVER give up

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

"Some men give up their designs when they have almost reached the goal; while others, on the contrary, obtain a victory by exerting, at the last moment, more vigorous efforts than ever before." Herodotus 

Announcements

      Guided reading will continue 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 have Math groups on Wednesday mornings starting this week at 8:05-9:05 am.

      Please, look out for the sign-up genius for all upcoming events this week.

Have a great week.

Sincerely,

Mrs. Toyin and Ms. Peterson

Dear Parents,

I hope you all had a great weekend. It was nice talking to you all last week. I have always viewed the education of children with the illustration of a tripod stand in mind. The parents represent one leg, the teacher one, and the child represents the last. In order for the tripod to stand properly, the three legs have to be strong and sturdy. As we look ahead, the roles we play in the lives of these children must continue to linger in our hearts. The conversations we had last week, reminded me of the important role teachers and parents play in the life of the student. As this new week begins, Ms. Peterson and I will go back to our drawing boards, set new goals, begin to implement new strategies, and make use of suggestions garnered from you all. Please, remember we must keep this conversation going through out the school year. Thank you for all the kind gestures bestowed on us through out the conference week. Here is a quick 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: help, hard, race, cover, fire, wire, tire, age, and gold

List 2: read, read, red, fine, cannot, May, may, line, left, ship, and train

List 3: saw, pay, large, near, down, why, bill, want, girls, and girl

 

READING – READING STRATEGY: Our reading strategy this week will be identifying story elements. We will begin The Boxcar Children this week. I am assuming that all scholars have their books by now.

 POETRY: Title: “Caterpillars” is our poem for this month. A copy of the poem was sent home this week. Students will memorize poem, and say it individually by memory beginning this week.

SAYING: “Where there is a will there’s a way.”  We will appreciate it if you use it at home because children retain sayings when they engage in it through meaningful use.

           

GRAMMAR/VOCABULARY – Students will learn what contractions are and how they are formed.

WRITING – As we work with Writing With Ease, students will continue to develop narration, dictation and copy work skills. As the narration and dictation homework goes home every week, we are asking that you help us pay attention to proof reading their work. I really want to suggest that you encourage your scholars to write a sentence every day, and have them look back and correct their mistakes. I really want to create awareness to writing this quarter. It will help your scholars see the reading-writing connection.

LEVELED READERS

Please, encourage your scholars to take their readings seriously. Their reflection logs will go home for the first time this week. There are three pages of reflection and three books. They are expected to log in one book per page. Please, remind them to write the title of the text on the page they work on.

MATH

We will continue with measurement of length. Last week, we differentiated between standard measuring and non-standard measuring units. They also learned that they can measure the length, height, or width of an object. This week, the focus will be measuring units in centimeters and measuring curved lines; we will continue to refer back to measuring units in meters as well. We will spend time using a tape rule to measure their waste and curved surfaces. Please, have them bring tape rule to school if you have one at home (It is not compulsory for them to bring a tape rule). I will introduce using bar models to solve word problems.

SCIENCE

We will review the water cycle this week, and then move on to clouds. We will learn only four types of clouds: Cumulus, cirrus, stratus, and cumulonimbus clouds.

HISTORY

        This week, we will talk about how Chinese people honor members of their family especially their ancestors. We will talk about the Great Wall of China and what inspired Emperor Qin Shiguandhi to build what has become one of the great wonders of the world. If time permits, we will look at the Chinese language and how it has survived the test of time using symbols.

VIRTUE

Perseverance

To maintain a steadfast purpose in a work in spite of difficulty, obstacles, or discouragement.

NEVER give up

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

”Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish” – Johnny Quincy Adams

Announcements

·      Congrats to Robert Hooke the group that won the prestigious Responsibility award!

·      Guided reading will be resume 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 have Math groups on Wednesday mornings starting this week at 8:05-9:05 am.

·      We now have a wish list for our class. A special thank you to Mrs. Lavell for bringing in treats for the group that won our award of responsibility

·      We have a Math test every week. Please, make sure your child is reviewing concepts during homework practice.

Have a great week.

Sincerely,

Ms. Toyin & Ms. Peterson

Dear Parents,

I hope you all had a wonderful fall break. I am so excited that I get to meet with all of you this week and discuss the progress of your child. Here is a quick summary of our short week. Special thanks to Mrs. Thomas for sharing India with the three-second grade classes. We appreciate you taking time out of your busy schedule to impart knowledge in us.

LANGUAGE ARTS  

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

List 1: looks, pick,rich, zoo, zip, zero, seven, forget, happy, noon

List 2: think, sister, cast, card, south, deep, inside, blue, post, town

List 3: stay, grand, outside, dark, band, game, boat, rest, east, son,sun

READING – READING STRATEGY:  Please, have your child bring The Boxcar Children to school. We will begin reading this book this week. We will talk about the new characters we get to meet tomorrow.

 POETRY : Title: “Caterpillars” is our poem for this month again. They will bring a copy of the poem home tomorrow (Students will memorize poem and say it individually by memory at the end of the month.) It is absolutely compulsory this quarter for them to memorize these poems by heart.

SAYING: “Where there's a will there’s a way.”  We will appreciate it if you use it at home because children retain sayings when they engage in it through meaningful use.

           

MATH

In Math, we will begin our new mental Math program called Rocket Math. This new program will take 10mins of the 70mins allotted to Math everyday. It will sharpen your child’s knowledge of Math facts and automaticity.

We will begin measurement this week using standard and non-standard measuring unit. I will continue subtraction with renaming after school for the next two weeks. Students that did not do well on their final test, will be assessed again in two weeks time. I will also continue to review the skills in class.

HISTORY

We will begin a new unit on Ancient China. We will begin this unit by learning about to important rivers that helped early settlers in China. Then, they will learn about the Geography of China. We will also learn about Confucius and how he helped the people of China live a virtuous life.

VIRTUE

This week, I will emphasize the importance of friendship again as students return to school. Please, do likewise at home.

Announcements

·      Our sign-up genius is up. Please, remember to choose a slot for our end of quarter conference. Here is the URL: http://www.signupgenius.com/go/20f0c4da8a623a0f58-quarter. 

.   All students need to bring in a ruler by Wednesday.

·      Have your child bring The Boxcar Children to school.

·      We have half days the whole week.

·      Please, remember to sign up for specials conferences. Check out the links on the right hand side of my blog.

We look forward to seeing our dear scholars tomorrow.

Sincerely,

Ms. Toyin & Ms. Peterson