Thursday, January 29, 2009

January 26th - 30th, 2009

Well, I guess that I will tell you what has happened this week instead of what we will be doing. I honestly forgot to do this blog/schoolnotes thing this week. I was just so excited about the things that we were going to be doing, that it slipped my mind.

We have had very exciting week here at school. We have completed our first FULL week of The Daily Five. The students really enjoy The Daily Five. This week during The Daily Five, Ms. Selby (Blount's Reading Coach) came and watched as the students did the various centers of The Daily Five. She could see how much they loved this program and how engaged they are during this time. I truly believe that the students will benefit from the exposure to reading, writing and word work that they do with The Daily Five. Other than this, we have been talking about O as in Otter (Short o sound). We have read a couple of books about otters, as well as talked about the octopus. Some of your children have even written their own books about an otter or an octopus. I sure that you have enjoyed reading these, because they love writing and sharing them.

In Math, we finished up with subtraction and have started Geometry. We just got started today, so this will carry over into next week. We will have a few nights of Geometry homework. Keep practicing those addition and subtraction facts, as we will be using those skills again.

I have been grading papers over the last few nights and have noticed that our grades on the Daily Language Review Quizzes are not that hot. Each day (Monday - Thursday) I send home the sheet that we do first thing in the morning. The quiz that is given on Fridays is from those sheets. I take things directly from each day of practice. Please go over these sheets, NIGHTLY, with your students so that they are prepared for the quiz on Friday.

As you know we have added spelling this nine weeks. These grades are also "not that hot!" We practice this everyday in the classroom, so students should be prepared for this test. If you will look in your child's BEE book, you will find a chart with all the sounds that we have covered. Call out those sounds and make words using those sounds. Have your child write the words by stretching the word out and writing the sounds that they hear. Give them sentences...talk about how a sentence starts and ends. These are all things that we do in class everyday and the students should be practicing at home...especially when reading!

I have decided that since the library was closed so much the first week of school in January, I am going to sign up to 4 days on the Book It chart. This will allow some students a chance to make Book It for January, if they are close!

Since I was not here last Thursday (Jan. 22) and did not leave signed papers to be sent home, I am sending them today (Jan. 29). I will send them again on Feb. 5th, just to get back on schedule.

Upcoming February Events:

February 5th - Progress Reports & Signed Papers

February 6th - Valentine's Cards & Shoebox due! (sending home a note on 1/30)

February 11th - Spring Pictures

February 13th - Valentine's Day Parties - 1:30 - 2:15pm

February 16th - No School - President's Day

February 19th - Signed Papers

I hope that this finds you doing well and having a wonderful week!
As always, if you have any questions or concerns, do not hesitate to contact me.

Have a wonderful weekend!
Ms. Messick

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