Friday, February 12, 2010

February 15th - 19th

Important Dates . . .
February 15 -- President's Day -- No School
February 19th - Six Flags Great America Sheets due
February 25 -- Spring Pictures
February 26 -- Ozzie's Reading Club Deadline
-- Movie Night
March 1 -- Casmir Pulaski Day -- No School

Language Arts
The students are continuing to work on handwriting and sentences this week. Students are going to learn three key things to remember when writing - by Wednesday you can ask your child what this are. They will continue building on writing grammatically correct sentences that relate to the topic given.

Reading
Due to needing extra time to prepare for the Social Studies test last week, we will be continuing with lesson 5 of this program. Your child should still have the list of 7 words that should continue to be studied during the week in class and should be reviewed at home.

This month reading incentives are doubled & tripled for only a little while longer! Not only can your child read 20 minutes to go to the reading party, but they can read to earn a ticket to see the Kane County Cougars and go to Six Flags Great America! Please turn in the Six Flags Great America Sheets Friday and Ozzie's Reading Club form after you complete two weeks - that way we can award the progress of getting around the bases.

Please keep reading 20 minutes a night for the Independent Reading Program! Every month each 20 minute increment read counts for a point up to 20 points – yes, that means an additional reading grade each month for learning to love to read. Your help is greatly appreciated! 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
This week we will continue to be divided into 3 different spelling groups. Some will be working on Unit 22 this week and others will be working on a separate list that will not relate to the spelling workbooks they have used up to this point, because we will be working on building reading and spelling skills at the same time through this list.

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: Fancy Letters - Use old magazines, catalogs, or newspapers to cut out letters and glue them down to spell your words!

Social Studies
The children will begin Unit 3, Working Together. This unit introduces the children to work in the community. They will discuss income as it relates to spending and saving. They will differentiate between goods and services and will follow the process of taking a product from farm to factory to consumer.

Math (Mrs. K's Math class only)
We have been doing mini lessons on various math skills along with comparing and ordering numbers. This week we will review and learn more about money and time skills. The children will be encouraged to use various manipulatives and strategies to achieve understanding of value; whether it be understanding through touch points, unfix cubes, other tangible objects, 100's chart, and various place value charts.

Daily Homework
Reading - 20 minutes and fill in both Independent Reading Folder Log, Six Flags Great America Sheets, & Ozzie's Log
- students should practice reading poem nightly to parents to work on fluency
- study lesson 5 vocabulary words
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