Dear Parents,

Welcome to the eighth week of our third quarter. I hope we all had a great weekend. The quarter is moving to an end so fast.

Here is a quick look at our 26^th week:

LANGUAGE ARTS

SPALDING – We will continue with our spelling list this week. Students will get their first introductory lesson to cursive this week. Our Spalding coordinator, Mrs. Clouse will come in to introduce how to write lower case letters. We are all so excited about this development. I will have to confirm tomorrow if we have spelling words for the week.

READING – READING STRATEGY: In comprehension, we will revisit identifying main idea and supporting details. We will continue to review all comprehension strategies learned so far. All scholars should bring in our next Literature: Sarah Plain and Tall. We will begin this literature on Monday.

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POETRY: Title: For the rest of the quarter, students will memorize the preamble of the constitution. We read through the preamble, and we discussed meaning of difficult words so that children can have a better understanding of the vocabulary in the one paragraph preamble.

SAYING: “Two heads are better than one” is our saying. Students learned that a task becomes easier when more than one person gets it done. Please, encourage your scholars to practice using it through meaningful use.

GRAMMAR/VOCABULARY – We will continue to practice all parts of speech, the focus will still be on prepositions this week.

WRITING – As we continue working on Writing With Ease, students will continue to develop narration, dictation and copy work skills.

LEVELED READERS – Your scholar will bring home a chapter book to read this week. Please, encourage them to continue to write their reflection logs. I have observed an admirable love of reading in our class. I am trying as much as possible to create 10mins of independent reading time in the class library, and students are taking advantage of this.

MATH

This week, we will focus on division with remainder. Students should be reviewing their multiplication table every day at home still.

SCIENCE

We will continue our study of the Human body. Students will describe the relationship among cells, tissues, organs, and systems.  We will explore how cell relate to tissues and how tissues form organs and how organs make systems.

HISTORY

  In History, We will begin the unit on “The War of 1812”. They will learn about what caused the war, and the role of the native Indians in the war. They will also learn about the burning of Washington and Dolley Madison’s role in saving government papers. They will learn the story of the “Star Spangled Banner” by Francis Scott Key and why the Battle of New Orleans was fought after the signing of the Treaty of Ghent.

VIRTUE OF THE MONTH - FRIENDSHIP

To be attached to another by sincere feelings of affection and care for their well-being.

Be the BEST for others

Friendship involves many things but, above all the power of going
outside oneself and appreciating what is noble and loving in another.
                                                                          - Thomas Huxley

ANNOUNCEMENTS

• Congratulations to McCahey Fuerst for representing the school in a Chess tournament, we are so proud of you!
• We will continue with guided reading and Math groups this week. I look forward to seeing all our wonderful parent volunteers.
• Scholars will not be allowed to return to class after their teacher has led them to the MPR at the end of the day. It means that if they forget their homework, they cannot return to the classroom to pick it up. Please, let me know if you have questions about this.
• Students should remember to bring in their graded cell presentations. Students that received low scores will be taught the concept again. Thank you for helping out with this initiative.
• Students may begin to wear shorts to school after March 1^st.
• Our wish list is still active:

- Sani hand wipes

- Pencils

Thank you for all you do to support our class!

Have a great week.

Sincerely,

Mrs. Toyin and Ms. Peterson

Dear Parents,

Welcome to the seventh week of our third quarter. I am sure you all had a wonderful three-day weekend. Special thanks to all our parents that sent in treats for our Great Hearts day celebration; it was us such a beautiful day to discuss friendship and great heartedness. We thank Mrs. Gerson, Mrs. Bruns, Mrs. Schuster, and Mrs. Everhart who stopped by to help. We are so blessed to have you all.

Here is a quick look at our 25^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.

List 1: understand, follow, charge, member, case, while, also, return, office, great

List 2: Miss, miss, who, died, die, changing, change, few, pleasant, please

READING – READING STRATEGY: In comprehension, we will revisit story elements we will look at setting and characterization. We will continue to review all comprehension strategies learned so far. All scholars should bring in our next Literature: Sarah Plain and Tall

.

POETRY: Title: For the rest of the quarter, students will memorize the preamble of the constitution. We read through the preamble, and we discussed meaning of difficult words so that children can have a better understanding of the vocabulary in the one paragraph preamble.

SAYING: “Two heads are better than one” will be our next saying. Please, encourage your scholars to practice using it through meaningful use.

GRAMMAR/VOCABULARY – We will continue to practice all parts of speech, the focus will be on prepositions this week.

WRITING – As we continue working on Writing With Ease, students will continue to develop narration, dictation and copy work skills.

LEVELED READERS – Your scholar will bring home a chapter book to read this week. Please, encourage them to continue to write their reflection logs.

MATH

This week, we will focus on division of 5s and multiplication and division of 10s. Students are doing much better with multiplication and division. Lets encourage them to keep doing their mental Math.

SCIENCE

We will continue our study of the Human body. Students will describe the relationship among cells, tissues, organs, and systems. We will make cell samples using cookie dough and several other candies to represent a cell structure this week.

HISTORY

  In History, we will finish our unit on the US Constitution. Students will do their test on Wednesday. We will begin the unit on “The War on 1812” this Friday.

VIRTUE OF THE MONTH - FRIENDSHIP

To be attached to another by sincere feelings of affection and care for their well-being.

Be the BEST for others

Friendship is always a sweet responsibility, never an opportunity. – Khalil Gibran

ANNOUNCEMENTS

• We will continue with guided reading and Math groups this week. I look forward to seeing all our wonderful parent volunteers.
• Scholars will not be allowed to return to class after their teacher has led them to the MPR at the end of the day. It means that if they forget their homework, they cannot return to the classroom to pick it up. Please, let me know if you have questions about this.
• Our wish list is still active:

- Sani hand wipes

- Chapter books

- Pencils

Thank you for all you do to support our class!

Have a great week.

Sincerely,

Mrs. Toyin and Ms. Peterson

 Please join Headmaster Gillingham for coffee this Thursday, February 12th.
Please, follow the link to sign up.

http://www.signupgenius.com/go/30e084da5a929aa8-coffee

Dear Parents,

Welcome to the sixth week of our third quarter. I hope you all had fun at the Family Fun Run this weekend. It was nice seeing everyone come together. I am so blessed to be walking this path of educating the next generation with you all. I truly appreciate your generous donations to our fun basket.

Here is a quick look at our 24^th week:

LANGUAGE ARTS  

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

List 1: account, driven, real, recover, mountain, speak, past, might, contract, deal

List 2: almost, all, brought, bring, less, event, off, of, true, truth

List 3: took, again, inform, both, heart, month, children, child, build, built

READING – READING STRATEGY: In comprehension, students will focus on making inferences. We will also continue to reinforce the importance of identifying main ideas and supporting details, compare and contrast alongside cause and effect relationships.

POETRY: Title: We did our poetry recitals on Friday. Our scholars have improved their presentation skills greatly. We have started grading poetry recitals so that parents can have an idea how their children are performing. Please, email me if you have concerns.

SAYING: The Real McCoy is an idiom that came about as a result of an invention by Elijah McCoy. It simply means “the real thing”.

GRAMMAR/VOCABULARY – We will continue to practice all parts of speech, the focus will be on articles this week, and we will introduce preposition this week as well. We will continue to review all parts of speech every week.

WRITING – As we continue working on Writing With Ease, students will continue to develop narration, dictation and copy work skills.

LEVELED READERS – Your scholar will bring home a chapter book to read this week. Please, encourage them to continue to write their reflection logs.

MATH

This week, we will go back to learning multiplication. We will start with multiplication of 4s and 5s. It’s important that your child continues to work on their mental math worksheets.

SCIENCE

Students will come home with their Science study guides. We will write our Science test for insects on Wednesday. We will begin studying The Human Body on Tuesday. We will explore the digestive system.

HISTORY

  In History, we will continue to learn about the constitution. Our focus this week will be on how hard the founding fathers worked during the constitutional convention. Children will read the preamble of the constitution and familiarize themselves with the vocabulary used.

VIRTUE OF THE MONTH - FRIENDSHIP

To be attached to another by sincere feelings of affection and care for their well-being.

Be the BEST for others

Walking with a friend in the dark is better than walking alone in the light.     – Helen Keller

ANNOUNCEMENTS

• We will continue with guided reading and Math groups this week. I look forward to seeing all our wonderful parent volunteers.
• Scholars will not be allowed to return to class after their teacher has led them to the MPR at the end of the day. It means that if they forget their homework, they cannot return to the classroom to pick it up. Please, let me know if you have questions about this.
• Friday, February 13, is Great Hearts Day. We plan to have some refreshments on Friday. We will spend about an hour celebrating friendship and virtues.  Please, if you would like to send in a healthy snack for the whole class, email me by Wednesday. Students are not allowed to bring in Valentine cards or candies for class members. Any snack coming into the classroom has to be approved by Wednesday.
• Our wish list is still active:

- Kleenex

- Sani hand wipes

- Chapter books

Thank you for all you do to support our class!

Have a great week.

Sincerely,

Mrs. Toyin and Ms. Peterson

Dear Parents,

Welcome to the fifth week of our third quarter. I hope you all had a great weekend in the midst of the Super Bowl fanfare in Phoenix this weekend. I want to seize this opportunity to thank all parents for their support during the Greek Festival. It was a huge success. I was so proud of the performance put up by our scholars during the reader’s theatre. We look forward to more learning that will take place as the school year unfolds. The Olympics was also a huge success despite the heavy down pour. Congratulations to the Spartans! Here is a quick look at our 23^rd 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 three days of spelling.

List 1: trust, extra, dress, beside, teach, happen, begun, collect, files, provide 

List 2: sight, stood, fixed, born, goes, go, hold, drill, army

List 3: pretty, stole, income, bought, paid, pay, enter, railroad, unable, ticket

READING – READING STRATEGY: In comprehension, students will be able to compare and contrast characters in their readings. We will also continue to reinforce the importance of identifying main ideas and supporting details alongside cause and effect relationships. We will continue with our eight chapter in The Cricket in Times Square.

POETRY: Title: Students will recite the poem “Smart” on Friday.

SAYING: The Real McCoy is an idiom that came about as a result of the invention by Elijah McCoy. It simply means “the real thing” .

GRAMMAR/VOCABULARY – We will continue to practice all parts of speech, the focus will be on adverbs and articles this week.

WRITING – As we continue working on Writing With Ease, students will continue to develop narration, dictation and copy work skills.

LEVELED READERS – Your scholar will bring home a book to read this week. Please, encourage them to continue to write their reflection logs.

MATH

This week, we will continue to work on subtraction of numbers mentally. Many students eventually learned a strategy or two that they now feel comfortable using while adding numbers mentally. I will suggest you give them random numbers in the car to add or subtract mentally. It is a skill that they have to use often to master automaticity. We will finish our unit on addition and subtraction of mental math this week.

SCIENCE

This week, we will review our learning about social insects (ants, bees, termites…). We will also learn about helpful and harmful insects.

HISTORY

  In History,  we will round off our learnings about the great thinkers in Greece. We will officially begin American History by learning about what led to the revolutionary war and who our founding fathers are, and the things that inspired them to sacrifice so much for their countr

VIRTUE OF THE MONTH - FRIENDSHIP

To be attached to another by sincere feelings of affection and care for their well-being.

Be the BEST for others

“Why did you do all this for me?" he asked. "I don't deserve it. I've never done anything for you.’You have been my friend,' replied Charlotte. 'That in itself is a tremendous thing.” ― E.B. White, Charlotte's Web

ANNOUNCEMENTS

• We will continue with guided reading and Math groups this week. I look forward to seeing all our wonderful parent volunteers.
• Special thanks to the Everhart & Lavell family for all they did to make the Greek Festival a success.
• We will do our Galileo Math and Reading benchmark tests on Mon/Tues this week. The aim is to measure your child’s growth in reading and writing over a period of time.
• Scholars will not be allowed to return to class after their teacher has led them to the MPR at the end of the day. It means that if they forget their homework, they cannot return to the classroom to pick it up. Please, let me know if you have questions about this.
• The Color Run and Family Picnic is Saturday, February 7^th at Freestone Park..
• Please, sign up for our Fun Run Raffle Basket.

http://www.signupgenius.com/go/10c084facaa22a64-funrun/21050656

• Our wish list is still active:

- Kleenex

- Sani hand wipes

- Chapter books

Thank you for all you do to support our class!

Have a great week.

Sincerely,

Mrs. Toyin and Ms. Peterson