Friday, December 18, 2009

January 4th - 8th

Important Dates . . .
January 4 -- Classes Resume after Winter Break
January 11-15 IOWA Week
January 18 -- M.L. King's Birthday -- No School

Language Arts
We are continuing to build our skills from recognizing and identifying sentences to identifying two main parts of a sentence. Beginning this week students will learn how to locate the subject and predicate of a sentence.

Reading
We will not only be working on our fluency, phonics and phonemic awareness, but will be building on our skills by working specifically on our vocabulary skills in a very structured way. Your child will be coming home with 7 words that will be studied during the week in class and should be reviewed at home. On the page I will be senting home each Monday there will be suggestions on how you can work with your child & have them get extra practice.

Please keep reading 20 minutes a night for the Independent Reading Program! Starting January each 20 minute increment read counts for a point up to 20 points. I am strongly encouraging your child to learn to love to read! Your help is greatly appreciated! You may just note the time read in increments of 20 minutes in the pages read section. Please sign on the date the reading was accomplished. This orange folder should be turned in every Monday to make sure they are staying on track. The Independent Reading Folder should be turned in at the end of the month to ensure they can attend the lunch reading party. Keep reading!

Spelling
Practice pages will be assigned for the upcoming week's list on Friday to give additional study time. Over the weekend would be a good time to discuss the meaning of the words. Although we work on meaning typically on Fridays and Mondays, help from home is greatly encouraged! They will be receiving them daily as an assignment. A test over the lesson will be given every Friday. Please try to help your child study if you see they are not performing as well as you'd expect on the weekly test. One strategy you can use to help is: Picture words - Draw a picture and write your words in the picture.

Science
The children have begun Chapter 9, Matter. We will continue with Lesson 2 this week, “What are Solids?” We have discussed and written 3 definitions on notecards in this lesson. Including these words in conversation at home would be helpful to better understand the meaning. Then we will continue on to Lesson 3, “What are Liquids?” There is a lot of information to know. Please review lessons when possible. The information will be found in their science folder in their binder. This will help when the test arrives.

Math (Mrs. K's Math class only)
We will continue focusing on numbers – ordinal and place value and applying it to everyday situations. The children will be encouraged to use various manipulatives and strategies to achieve understanding of place value; whether it be understanding through money, unfix cubes, other tangible objects, 100's chart, and various place value charts.

Daily Homework
Reading - 20 minutes and fill in Independent Reading Folder Log
- practice reading poems given to work on fluency
Spelling - Practice Page nightly & study words with parents nightly

*Please check your child's homework and sign assignment notebook when complete.
**If your child is having difficulties with their homework please send a note and I will help them during free time

Friday, December 11, 2009

December 14th - 18th

Important Dates . . .
December 15th - 3rd Grade Bowling
December 17th - 4th Grade Bowling
December 18th - Independent Reading Program folders due
December 21 -- Winter Break Begins
January 4 -- Classes Resume after Winter Break

Christmas Theme Unit
We will be working on Christmas related activities and lessons in all areas. In reading and social studies we will be completing a Christmas webquest. In Language Arts we are focusing on capitalization rules this week. We will be working with a Christmas spelling list to build vocabulary and practice spelling. There will be no test this week, but students will still complete practice pages nightly.

Reading
We will read various Christmas stories this week. The first tells about the history and customs behind Christmas. The next few relate to the theme of Christmas, but we will be focusing more on story elements like character, plot, setting and summarizing throughout these short stories.

Please keep reading 20 minutes a night for the Independent Reading Program! You may just note the time read in increments of 20 minutes in the pages read section. Please sign on the date the reading was accomplished. This orange folder should be turned in every Monday to make sure they are staying on track. The Independent Reading Folder should be turned in this Thursday to ensure they can attend the lunch reading party. Keep reading!

Spelling
Practice pages will be assigned for the upcoming week's list on Friday to give additional study time. Over the weekend would be a good time to discuss the meaning of the words. Although we work on meaning typically on Fridays and Mondays, help from home is greatly encouraged! They will be receiving them daily as an assignment. A test over the lesson will be given every Friday.

Please try to help your child study if you see they are not performing as well as you'd expect on the weekly test. One strategy you can use to help is: Reading a Christmas story locating their spelling words within the story or Writing a Christmas letter to a long-distance family member using many of their spelling words.

Science
The children are two lessons into Chapter 9, Matter. We will revisit this unit upon our return in January. There is a lot of information to know in this chapter. Please review vocabulary cards over the next few weeks when possible. The information will be found in their science folder in their binder. This will help when the test arrives mid January.

Math (Mrs. K's Math class only)
We will continue focusing on numbers – ordinal and place value and applying it to everyday situations. The children will be encouraged to use various manipulatives and strategies to achieve understanding of place value; whether it be understanding through money, unfix cubes, other tangible objects, 100's chart, and various place value charts.

Daily Homework
Reading
- 20 minutes for 15 days this month
- fill in Independent Reading Folder Log
-turn in Independent Reading Folder Log Thursday
Spelling
- Practice Page nightly & study words with parents

*Please check your child's homework and sign assignment notebook when complete.
**If your child is having difficulties with their homework please send a note and I will help them during free time

Thursday, December 3, 2009

December 7th - 11th

Important Dates . . .
December 8th – Last day to turn in gifts for our holiday service project
December 9th - Drury Lane field trip
December 15th - 3rd Grade Bowling
December 17th - 4th Grade Bowling
December 18th - Independent Reading Program folders due
December 21 -- Winter Break Begins
January 4 -- Classes Resume after Winter Break

Don't forget our Special Holiday Project!
Each year Prairieview School adopts needy families of cancer patients who struggle financially. Specific information about this project and our family was handed out. Have you seen this yet? If not, please ask your child about it. The economy is difficult right now, but if you are able to brighten Christmas for this family in any way, it would be greatly appreciated! All gifts are due by December 8th.

Miss Pellin's Blog for information about her family: http://mpellin.blogspot.com/
Mrs. Cushing's Blog for information about her family: http://cushingscorner.blogspot.com/

Language Arts
We are continuing to build our skills from recognizing and identifying sentences to identifying two main parts of a sentence. Beginning this week students will learn how to locate the subject and predicate of a sentence.

Reading
We will continue our study of Charles Dickens story, "A Christmas Carol". We will continue focusing on story elements like character, plot, setting and summarizing throughout this study. This study will better prepare us for our field trip this Wednesday. We will explore new vocabulary and compare and contrast the story with the play.

Please keep reading 20 minutes a night for the Independent Reading Program! You may just note the time read in increments of 20 minutes in the pages read section. Please sign on the date the reading was accomplished. This orange folder should be turned in every Monday to make sure they are staying on track. The Independent Reading Folder should be turned in at the end of the month to ensure they can attend the lunch reading party. Keep reading!

Spelling
Practice pages will be assigned for the upcoming week's list on Friday to give additional study time. Over the weekend would be a good time to discuss the meaning of the words. Although we work on meaning typically on Fridays and Mondays, help from home is greatly encouraged! They will be receiving them daily as an assignment. A test over the lesson will be given every Friday. Please try to help your child study if you see they are not performing as well as you'd expect on the weekly test. One strategy you can use to help is: Words without Vowels - Write your words replacing all vowels with a line.

Science
The children have begun Chapter 9, Matter. We will continue with Lesson 1 this week, “What is Matter?” We have discussed and written 3 definitions on notecards in this lesson. Including these words in conversation at home would be helpful to better understand the meaning. Then we will continue on to Lesson 2, “What are Solids?” There is a lot of information to know. Please review lessons when possible. The information will be found in their science folder in their binder. This will help when the test arrives.

Math (Mrs. K's Math class only)
We will continue focusing on place value and applying it to everyday situations. The children will be encouraged to use various manipulatives and strategies to achieve understanding of place value; whether it be understanding through money, unfix cubes, other tangible objects, 100's chart, and various place value charts.

Daily Homework
Reading - 20 minutes for 15 days this month
- fill in Independent Reading Folder Log
- practice reading poems given to work on fluency
Spelling - Practice Page nightly & study words with parents

*Please check your child's homework and sign assignment notebook when complete.
**If your child is having difficulties with their homework please send a note and I will help them during free time