Important Dates . . .
December 1 -- Parent/Teacher Conferences p.m.
December 3 -- Parent/Teacher Conferences -- No School
December 20 -- Winter Break Begins
January 3 -- Classes Resume after Winter Break
IMPORTANT NOTES:
The students of Project Challenge grades 3-5 are participating in a Lion's Club Holiday Drive. We are looking for donations such as new toys, new games, toiletries, and food for the needy families in the Darien area. If you wish to participate you will need to bring the donations in by December 13. Remember that some of these families live right here in Darien. So let's help these families have a happy holiday season. PLEASE DONATE!
Paper Recycling Fundraiser Comes to Prairieview: We are happy to announce we can now raise money for our district by recycling paper! You can help us out, too! Please collect any paper you are going to throw away or recycle (office and school paper, newspaper, magazines and catalogs, and construction paper---no cardboard!) and send it in with your child to school or drop it off at the green and yellow Paper Retriever bin in the Lakeview parking lot (near the fence by the Prairieview playground). The bin is available for drop offs 24/7. The more paper we recycle, the more money we can make! Do something good for our schools AND the environment! Thank you!
Language Arts
We are beginning on to a new unit this week on Nouns.
Reading
This week we will continue with Soar to Success. We will read a new story each week and focus on phonics and comprehension skills in small groups. This week they will be reading The Wolf's Chicken Stew.
We will continue working on phonics, decoding, encoding, and comprehension throughout the week through direct instruction, Lexia, and hands on materials.
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 red folder should be turned in every Friday to make sure they are staying on track. The Independent Reading Folder should be turned in for a grade at the end of the month. Keep reading!
Spelling
This week we will wrap up the list of the top 100 words with a review. These l00 words as listed in the "A.B.C. Language Arts Bulletin" Educational Research Service, American Book Co., account for 65% of all running words in the writing of adults.
Practice pages will be assigned for the upcoming week's list on Monday. At the beginning of the week 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 this 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: Finger Tracing - Use your finger to spell out each of your words one letter at a time on your Mom or Dad’s back. Then it’s YOUR turn to feel and spell.
Science
This upcoming week we will be introducing Chapter 5, Exploring Earth's Surface. The "Big Idea" of this chapter is the Earth's surface is made up of many different materials and can change over time. To maintain a consistent understanding of the science vocabulary words, we will be building this throughout the chapter in the form of flashcards.
Math
We are continuing with subtraction! Not only have they learned strategies to subtraction, but they have had to learn to solve subtraction word problems. The children have done a wonderful job with the PAL rule when solving word problems.
P = problem ( 2 + 2 = )
A = answer ( 4 )
L = label ( toys )
Daily Homework
Reading - 20 minutes and complete Independent Reading Folder Log
- weekly turn in on Friday
- practice reading poems given to work on fluency
Spelling - Practice Page nightly to be turned in & study words for test
*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.
