Important Dates . . .
January 25 -- District Spelling Bee
January 27 -- Chapter 6 Science Test
January 28 -- Bingo Night
February 21 -- President's Day -- No School
February 25 -- End of Trimester
March 1 -- Report Cards
Language Arts
We will be introducing the unit of "Verbs" this week. Students will get to listen to various stories that explain what verbs are with great visual examples. As always with language arts, they will be using the interactive white board to practice their knowledge of verbs with the class.
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 we will read and discuss the book Baby Whales Drink Milk. Also, they will further focus on literal comprehension using a winter themed short story.
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! This month I will be requiring 20 days at 20 minutes. 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 this Thursday. Keep reading!
Spelling
The spelling words this week will reflect the Language Arts unit of Pronouns - more specifically object pronouns. They will be receiving a spelling practice page daily as an assignment. A test over this week's lesson and last week's lesson will be given Friday. Please try to help your child study daily.
One strategy you can use to help with spelling words this week is play a spelling game as follows: Spelling Game 1: Use Board Games, such as Monopoly
Play any game that is normally played with dice with your child -- Monopoly, for example. You can continue to move his token forward in the normal way by throwing the dice, but your child must orally spell a word to move forward.
To select words that can be used, you should first select the two spelling lists of pronouns (last week and this week), science vocabulary words, and use words from your child's schoolwork that he often misspells. Your child should make word cards of these words. It is best to use not fewer than 20 words and not more than 30. When playing a board game, the same 20-30 words can be used, or if your child already knows how to spell them, other words can be selected. You must thoroughly shuffle the word cards, and then put them in a pile upside down on the table between the two (or more) players.
When it is your child's turn to play, you must take a word from the top of the pile and then say the word aloud. Your child must spell the word. If they spell the word correctly, he may move his token the same number of spaces as there are letters in the word. For example, for a word of seven letters he may move his token forward seven spaces. The word card is then put aside. If, however, he misspells the word, you must show the word to your child, and they must spell the word aloud three times while looking at the word, and then three times without looking at it. Then the word is put at the bottom of the pile, so that it will come up again later. If your child misspells a word, he may also not move his token for that turn.
Science
We will continue with lesson three of Chapter 6, Natural Resources. The "Big Idea" of this chapter is Earth has many natural resources that people use. It is important to protect them to make them last. To maintain a consistent understanding of the science vocabulary words, we will be building this throughout the chapter in the form of flashcards and applying them in spelling also. It is important to begin reviewing vocabulary more often as a test is coming up this week, Thursday. Students will be bringing home their science text more often this week to reread in preparation for the test.
Math
We will be starting Chapter 5, Addition Strategies up to 12. This chapter will be focusing on specific strategies behind adding numbers and incorporting more mental math than in the past few chapters,
Daily Homework
Reading - 20 minutes and fill in Independent Reading Folder Log
- weekly turn in on Friday & monthly due as late as Monday
- practice reading poems given to work on fluency
Spelling - Practice Page nightly to be turned in & study words for test
