September 26th Newsletter

Weekly Newsletter
Starting this week, I will be e-mailing the weekly newsletter to the e-mail address you provided. This week I am also sending home a paper copy of it. Next week, I will not be sending home a paper copy. If you prefer to have a paper copy sent also, just drop me a quick note and I will send one to you each week. Thanks.

Book Fair
Once again, the book fair was a success! Thank you to everyone who donated money for books to the classroom. I was able to purchase 7 new books for our room. They'll get put to good use.

Important Dates
October 4 – Market Day
8 – Fire Safety Assembly
13 – Columbus Day – No School
22 – Early Dismissal – 12:00
24 – Halloween Party at Ide
6:00-8:00
31- Classroom Halloween Parties

Magazine Sales
The last day for turning in magazine orders is Tuesday, Sept. 30th. Please send any orders to school on or before Tuesday.

Big Words
Our new vocabulary “BIG Words” are: fleet, lively, expression,comforting, versatile, and glimmer.
We introduce new words every other week and try to use and listen for the old ones throughout our day.

Reading
Next week we will be reading two stories from the anthology about things children can do. Cam and Pat is about two children and what they do together. A Day at School tells us about what three children did at school. We will learn how to read a poem using the four poems that appear in the anthology.
Comprehension Strategies

• summarizing


• comparing & contrasting
  

Phonics Skills

• short “a” sound
  
• blending words that have the cvc pattern.
  

Vocabulary Words

• The vocabulary words for next week are: and, here, jump, not, too, we, can, fan, nap, Pat, and tap.

Grammar Lesson

• beginning sentences with a capital letter.
  
  
  

Student of the Week
Alex Gabbard was our student of the week this week.

September 19th Newsletter

Student of the Week
Alex was chosen to be the student of the week for next week. The activity bag will be sent home on Friday and needs to be returned the following Thursday. If you are able to come & read to the class (when your child is chosen), then just drop me an e-mail and let me know that you are able to come. Our guest reader time is on Friday, from 12:45-1:10.

RTI (Response to Intervention)
This will be starting next week. The children will be changing classes from 10:15-11:15 each morning. They have been placed in a classroom with other students at the same instructional reading level. These levels have been determined through test scores collected last spring and this fall. The reading objectives found in the next column are the same for all children regardless of what class they are in.

Math
We completed the first chapter in Math this week. Some of the pages were a little tricky and the students had to listen carefully to directions. The children were assessed with a chapter and a cumulative review test.
Chapter 2 will be dealing with understanding addition. We have already been talking about addition problems in our thinking journals and also when we do our lunch count each morning.

Reading
This week's poem was called The Ants Go Marching. We found the common sight words within it, and practiced reading & singing it together.

Next week we will begin our new reading series. We have an anthology called Here We Go! We will be reading two stories in it about some playful animals. On The Go! is about a cat and a dog who take a swim in a pool. Mac the Cat is about a lovable cat that makes a mess of the house.

We will be reading a non-fiction story Pet Cats and Big Cats. This will help us learn to read science articles.

We will be practicing the comprehension strategies of predicting, sequencing, and evaluating.

Phonics lessons will introduce the short “a” vowel sound. We will be blending words that have the cvc pattern (consonant, vowel, consonant)

Vocabulary words will be names for animals and animal sounds. We’ll review the high-frequency words: go, the and on.

Grammar lessons will focus on using capital letters at the beginning of sentences.

Spelling words will not be introduced for a few weeks.

Our poem for the week is Walking in the Woods.

Important Dates
Sept. 24 – Book Fair/Ice Cream Social at E. Ide 6:30-8:00 pm
Sept. 25 - Picture Day

Have a great weekend!