Hi Parents,
It appears our "cool" weather is over for now. Thank you to the students who have brought in books, air fresheners, headphones, and wipes for the class. They are much appreciated.
This week in Writer's Workshop we will continue to "zoom in" on our topic and adding true, exact details. Last week we worked on telling our story on five fingers and discovered if we couldn't do that, then we needed to examine what was truly essential to our story. Students will be selecting one of their seed stories and publish this week as we begin to work on leads and how to engage your reader. I often use my own personal stories to highlight the strategies, so you may hear some rather interesting events about my life!
In Reading, I am continuing to hear students read individually to find the best fit book. We will add to our CAFE strategies. This week we will focus on making connnections as we read in a number of ways: connecting text to self, text to text, and text to world; all of these will strenghten comprehension. Our individual book boxes are set up and students may bring in books from home to add to their box so they will have a variety of books to choose from.
In Math, please continue to assist your child with memorizing multiplication facts. We continue in Everydaymath with geometry. This week's focus will be polygons, quadrilaterals, parallel lines, and intersecting lines. I discovered there are Everydaymath apps for the Iphone, Ipad, and Ipod touch; they are not free, but something you may be interested in checking out. I've been playing Top-It on my phone!
Going Green is underway and the students clearly have some thoughts on our environment. They truly collaborated and created some amazing posters illustrating what Going Green means to them. They presented to the class and I was so impressed with their presentations and audience manners. This week we will work on our note-taking skills as we become familiar with the terms natural resource, renewable and nonrenewable resouces, and fossil fuels.
Rosetta Stone is underway as well and we will be doing it on Wednesday mornings. Students will also be able to further instruction in ASL (Academic Skills Lab) and they may practice at home, too.
Enjoy your week!
