January 24th Update...

Hello Parents and Students,

Thank you for visiting today. A few important changes to our school calendar have been made to make up the 5 snow days we had a few weeks ago. The children will be having a full day of school on February 2 and March 18. Please make sure you make the necessary arrangements.  We've got lots of important work to make up!  Check out below to see what we've been doing in class this week...

Phonics/Grammar:  We learned the three different spelling patterns that often make the long a sound.  This assessment seemed to challenge many students who may not normally need at home study time to do well on the Friday quiz.  Please make sure your child knows these spelling patterns. We spend 4 days, at least 20 minutes each day, going over these patterns and practicing reading and writing the words, but additional time may be needed at home.

Reading:  We continue our study of nonfiction text features in books.  We added "clues" to our list that help us identify books as nonfiction and we worked in small groups to read and investigate many nonfiction books. We also worked in small groups with nonfiction periodicals.

Writing:  We are working diligently on learning how to write an informational paragraph.  The conventions we've used since the beginning of the year such as titles, names, indenting, and correct capitalization and punctuation should be second nature to your child at this point in the year.  We are now focusing on such things as creating interesting topic and closing sentences and organizing our lists of details to help us write a well organized paper.

Math:  We worked on adding and subtracting numbers with larger addends.  We also reviewed fact families and number representation.  In small group time, we focused on challenging word problems and using pictures to help us solve these challenges.

Social Studies:  We learned all about Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad.  Be on the lookout for some wonderful informational paragraphs coming home next week on this amazing woman.

Class News...

Congratulations to Connor Turner for being chosen as this month's Terrific Kid!  He's done a wonderful job exhibiting all the characteristics of a model student.

Congratulations to Sydney Greene for being chosen as last week's Teacher's Helper!  Way to go, Sydney!

Thank you to Mrs. Davis and Mrs. Young for helping our students with AR this week during reading time!

The six flags reading contest has begun!  In order to save paper, I will be checking your child's reading log, so please make sure it is updated weekly. The contest ends on Feb. 18th. No late submissions will be accepted.

A BIG UPS goes out to our class for all the participation in this month's extra credit project!  We had 10 children complete the assignment!  What SELF MOTIVATION!