Classroom Issue 6

Classroom News

Thank you to all of the parents who brought in prizes for our prize box and treats for math class. We could use prizes for the prize box anytime, so if you have anything to donate, it will be greatly appreciated!

Reading Parties: The next reading party is Thursday, November 8th. Continue to read 20 minutes each night and fill in the reading log. The last day to turn in the reading log for the next party is Wednesday, November 7th. Also, at the end of the year we have a party for students who have attended each reading party for the year. I will allow one "freebie" month that your child can miss, so if they attend every party but one, they can join us for the final party at the end of May. Thanks!

Magazine Drive Winners: We are one lucky class! Nick Paskvan and Bradley Burton each won our class a special treat during the magazine drive. Nick chose doughnuts for the class that will be enjoyed on Wed. 10/17 and Bradley chose cookies that we be shared on Friday 10/26. Yum!

Field Trip: We enjoyed our "recess" at Elizabeth Ide playing on the brand new playground. Even in the chilly weather the children had a great time!

Upcoming Events:

*Mon. 10/15: English: DOL #3 Quiz (covering book titles and introductory words)

Spelling: List 7 Pretest

*Wed. 10/17: Reading: Illinois Workbook Lesson 1 Review (see practice review coming home on Mon.)

Early Dismissal: School out at 11:00 am

*Thurs. 10/18: Book Fair at school 6:45-8:30 pm

*Fri. 10/19: Spelling: Test List 7
Spirit Day: Wear A Crazy Hat!

*Math: We are busy practicing place value and logical reasoning. We will begin money next week, so please have your child bring in their coins by Thursday of next week. We will have a graded place value review on Tuesday, so you can review any worksheets on place value in your child's math folder. They will need to know the names of the different place values up to 100,000 and the different forms of writing numbers (standard: 391, expanded: 300 + 90+ 1, and word form: three hundred and ninety-one). Also, thank you to those parents who sent in candy for our store in math. This is an activity where we will practice counting change from $1. The store will provide non-edible treats as well. Each child will only be able to purchase 2 items. We are still in need of the following individually, mini wrapped treats(like you see at stores for Halloween) for our store (which will take place on Tues. 10/23):

*Twix

*Starburst

Thanks!

*Science: We started on unit on health and nutrition. We will be learning about the food pyramid on Monday. We will be making a food pyramid book in class for a grade. The students will be given class time on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday to work on the book. If the students do not finish the book in class, it will be sent home on Wednesday to be turned in on Thursday. Thank you!

*Social Studies: The students are working their way around the world in Social Studies! We finished learning about the continents and oceans and the students did a wonderful job of locating and naming these places on the map. We will start our unit on hemispheres next week. We will cover the 4 hemispheres, North and South pole, Equator, and Prime Meridian. A graded review of these concepts is scheduled for Monday, Oct. 22nd. A study guide will be sent home next week.

*Spelling: We will work on list 7 this week, irregular plural nouns. There will be a pretest on Monday and the final test on Friday. Keep up the good work practicing and studying the words at home. The students are doing a great job on their weekly tests.

*Reading: We have finished up The Chalkbox Kid and made our own chalk gardens. They look great! We will begin reading non-fiction short stories on animals. The students will do one as a whole group, work with partners on another story as they read, answer questions, and make a poster on the main ideas and details of the story, and finally read and answer questions on their own for a grade. This is a great way to learn new vocabulary, answer different types of questions, and locate and highlight answers within the text.

Also, we are working on various word analysis concepts in our Illinois workbook. We will be finishing up lesson 1 on Tuesday and a graded review will be given on Wednesday. All of the pages have been ripped out of the students workbook and stapled together and put in their reading folder of their binders. The review will cover prefix/suffix, vowel and letter sounds, and compound words. A review will be sent home on Monday for homework and we will go over it Tuesday in class.

*English: We are busy writing our descriptive paragraphs. The students have learned how to narrow a topic and choose just one idea to write about. We are using all we have learned about descriptive writing and applying it to our work. We are using WOW opening sentences, specific color words, sensory details, similes, and "wrap it up" ending sentences. We will continue working on descriptive writing next week.