Dear Parents,

How are you all doing? I hope you all had a restful weekend. I want to thank you all for taking time out of your busy schedule to support our scholars during our first winter concert. I was very proud of the performance they put up. It’s such a great privilege to be a part of the team educating these young ones that will impact the next generation.

Here is a quick look at our 16^th week.

LANGUAGE ARTS  

SPALDING – We will continue with our spelling list this week. Please, review homework as they come home. This week, we will have only two days of spelling. On Wednesday, children will take a test for the Spelling Bee. The results of the test will be used to shortlist the names of those that will participate in the oral Spelling Bee for the class. This second phase of the Spelling Bee will take place on Friday. Your child has to get all the words right to move on to the next level.

List 1: hopping, hop, knife, mouth, oak, peach, pole, queen, rope, season, sign, space, wagon, wheat, window

List 2: catch, catcher, kitchen, butcher, black, warm, unless, clothing, clothes, clothe, began, begin, beginning, able, gone, go

READING – READING STRATEGY: For comprehension, we will learn how to determine the most important information in a non-fiction text. We have finished Boxcar Children book. We will not begin a new book; instead we will focus on our core knowledge stories during reading.

We started reading the favorite Greek myths too. We are doing this to coincide with our History unit on Greece. The kids are enjoying the stories.

POETRY: Title: Our poem this month is “The Night Before Christmas” by Clement C. Students are not required to memorize the entire poem. The poems have been broken into sections. Your child just needs to memorize one out of six sections. Your child has to inform me by Friday the section he/she is memorizing so that we can plan for the order of recitals for the last day of school. Encourage your scholars to keep practicing.

SAYING: “In hot water" We will appreciate it if you use it at home because children retain sayings when they engage in it through meaningful use.

           

GRAMMAR/VOCABULARY – We will learn how to use direct quotation.

WRITING – As we work with Writing With Ease, students will continue to develop narration, dictation and copy work skills. We will also practice writing more thank you notes.

LEVELED READERS

Please, encourage your scholars to take their readings seriously. 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. By the beginning of second semester, we will start sending home chapter books with students that are read for them.

MATH

This week, we will wrap up the concept of division. We will begin multiplication by 2s. This may seem an easy concept, but we want to encourage scholars to take it seriously. We will send timed mental math homework home. Please, help us ensure the time indicated on the worksheet is adhered to.

SCIENCE

Last week, we completed the life cycle of a frog. We will begin the life cycle of a butterfly. It has been a pretty interesting journey through the life cycle. We still have our lima beans planted in zip lock bags thriving.

HISTORY

  Last week, we completed the first phase of our unit on Greece. We will begin the next phase this week, and we will learn about Athens-Athena’s city. The kids went home with their study guides. They will take the test on Tuesday.

VIRTUE - Citizenship

The character of an individual viewed as a member of society

Live To SERVE

“Every good citizen makes his country’s honor his own, and cherishes it not only as precious but as sacred.” – Andrew JacKson

Announcements

• Due to cooler weather, shorts are no longer permitted. If your child wears a skirt, please have her wear tights or knee-high socks.
• Our lost and found is filling up! Please write your child's last name (with permanent marker) in the inside of their jacket or sweater on the tag, and also label lunch boxes and water bottles.
• We are proud to announce that the Phoenix Symphony Orchestra is coming to Arete! The performance will be for Archway and Preparatory students on Thursday, December 11th at 9:30 a.m.
• We have a History test on Tuesday.
• This is our last week of guided reading for this quarter. We will have guided reading on Tuesday

 

Have a great week.

Sincerely,

Mrs. Toyin and Ms. Peterson