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
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Monday, January 19, 2009
January 20 - 23, 2009
I am so impressed with our class. We have started some new Literacy centers and they have taken to them so easily. I am very proud of how well the new centers work and the students are enjoying them.
As I said, we have started new literacy centers and the students love them. Ask your student about what is going on in our classroom. We will finish up the introduction of the new centers this week, by introducing Writing and Listening. Students should be familiar with these already, as we have used both of these centers previously. This week in whole group will be discussing L as in Letter. We will talk about how to write a letter and why we would need to write a letter. We will also talk about lions, along with other words beginning with l.
In Math this week, we will venture into chapter 14. This chapter will take us into subtraction and give us new strategies to solving subtraction problems. On Friday, we will do many activities that involve the number 100, since it will be the 100th day of school.
Grammar this week will cover pronouns and use of pronouns. Students will need to be able to identify pronouns and the noun that it refers to. We will take a Daily Language Review (DLR) quiz this Friday (Jan. 23). Please study the DLR sheets that we do throughout the week, as the quiz comes directly from the daily sheets. Your student should be bringing these sheets home in their B.E.E. books daily.
THIS WEEK:
January 19th - Holiday MLK Birthday
January 23rd - 100th day of school
January 22nd and 23rd - Muffins for Moms
I realize we have not changed our B.E.E. books out yet. I have had some family things going on and have not had time to take care of the preliminary work. I will do my best this week to take care of changing out the B.E.E. books. I know that I will not be at school on Thursday, so please just bear with me. I am praying for good news with the family issues this week!
I also want to tell you about the Library issue. I know that you all want your students to go to the library, as do I. I have not been stopping them from going, the library has been closed, a lot, since we returned to school. The check-out system changed and there was work that needed to be done in the library before the students could check out books. Once that was taken care of, the librarian needed to check books out to individual classes to insure there were no problems with any one's account. She finished that and then there was Class picture day, Teacher Treat day and there were power problems in the 3rd and 4th grade trailers on Friday (1/16)...all activities involved using the library, which meant that it had to be closed to students. I am hoping that this week will allow for a full week of library check-out! Don't worry about BookIt, I will deal with credits for this at the end of the month.
As always, if you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact me.
Hope that you have a wonderful week!
Ms. Messick
As I said, we have started new literacy centers and the students love them. Ask your student about what is going on in our classroom. We will finish up the introduction of the new centers this week, by introducing Writing and Listening. Students should be familiar with these already, as we have used both of these centers previously. This week in whole group will be discussing L as in Letter. We will talk about how to write a letter and why we would need to write a letter. We will also talk about lions, along with other words beginning with l.
In Math this week, we will venture into chapter 14. This chapter will take us into subtraction and give us new strategies to solving subtraction problems. On Friday, we will do many activities that involve the number 100, since it will be the 100th day of school.
Grammar this week will cover pronouns and use of pronouns. Students will need to be able to identify pronouns and the noun that it refers to. We will take a Daily Language Review (DLR) quiz this Friday (Jan. 23). Please study the DLR sheets that we do throughout the week, as the quiz comes directly from the daily sheets. Your student should be bringing these sheets home in their B.E.E. books daily.
THIS WEEK:
January 19th - Holiday MLK Birthday
January 23rd - 100th day of school
January 22nd and 23rd - Muffins for Moms
I realize we have not changed our B.E.E. books out yet. I have had some family things going on and have not had time to take care of the preliminary work. I will do my best this week to take care of changing out the B.E.E. books. I know that I will not be at school on Thursday, so please just bear with me. I am praying for good news with the family issues this week!
I also want to tell you about the Library issue. I know that you all want your students to go to the library, as do I. I have not been stopping them from going, the library has been closed, a lot, since we returned to school. The check-out system changed and there was work that needed to be done in the library before the students could check out books. Once that was taken care of, the librarian needed to check books out to individual classes to insure there were no problems with any one's account. She finished that and then there was Class picture day, Teacher Treat day and there were power problems in the 3rd and 4th grade trailers on Friday (1/16)...all activities involved using the library, which meant that it had to be closed to students. I am hoping that this week will allow for a full week of library check-out! Don't worry about BookIt, I will deal with credits for this at the end of the month.
As always, if you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact me.
Hope that you have a wonderful week!
Ms. Messick
Sunday, January 11, 2009
January 12-16, 2009
Well, the new year has arrived and we are back to school! WOW, how quickly the Winter Break came to an end! I am excited to be back with the students, believe it or not, I missed them. They ALL brighten my day and make me smile. I do hate to see time off come to an end, however, before we know it, the school year will be over.
As you may have heard, last week our class embarked on new centers during reading time. We are following along with the Daily Five. This is a new way of doing "centers" for reading. Students spend more time reading when doing these centers. I think that these centers will benefit us more than the previous centers we were doing. The student seem to enjoy the 2 centers that I have introduced so far. Hopefully that will continue. Our sound for this week will be -y as in Fly.
We are continuing addition and subtraction through sums of 12. We should wrap this unit up during the week and then begin the next that also has to do with subtraction and fact families. Practice those math facts. I noticed that we had lost a little knowledge in that area, so periodically quiz them on facts that they should know.
I hope that you received the note on Friday(9th) regarding the spelling tests that will be added this semester. These come from our Write Well series, we have been doing these throughout the first semester. There is not a list that can be sent home. We want to know what the students can do with the phonics that they are learning.
Also, on that note was an announcement that told about eliminating the "flip" of the clip prior to being moved to yellow. We will no longer do the "flip", since students have had an opportunity to learn the rules and expectations, students will move directly to yellow if they are found not meeting classroom behavior expectations.
UPCOMING DATES TO REMEMBER:
One day this - week-STAR TESTING
January 13th - PTA meeting
January 15th - Report cards
January 19th - Holiday MLK Birthday
January 21st - 100th day of school
January 22nd and 23rd - Muffins for Moms
Look for the latest DIBELS report and hopefully the STAR test results Thursday with report cards. Sign and return the DIBELS report and one copy of the report card-keep the other. The STAR test is part of the AR program-it will give your child their reading range which will help them to check out books at their level of reading.
As always, if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me.
Have a great week!
Ms. Messick
As you may have heard, last week our class embarked on new centers during reading time. We are following along with the Daily Five. This is a new way of doing "centers" for reading. Students spend more time reading when doing these centers. I think that these centers will benefit us more than the previous centers we were doing. The student seem to enjoy the 2 centers that I have introduced so far. Hopefully that will continue. Our sound for this week will be -y as in Fly.
We are continuing addition and subtraction through sums of 12. We should wrap this unit up during the week and then begin the next that also has to do with subtraction and fact families. Practice those math facts. I noticed that we had lost a little knowledge in that area, so periodically quiz them on facts that they should know.
I hope that you received the note on Friday(9th) regarding the spelling tests that will be added this semester. These come from our Write Well series, we have been doing these throughout the first semester. There is not a list that can be sent home. We want to know what the students can do with the phonics that they are learning.
Also, on that note was an announcement that told about eliminating the "flip" of the clip prior to being moved to yellow. We will no longer do the "flip", since students have had an opportunity to learn the rules and expectations, students will move directly to yellow if they are found not meeting classroom behavior expectations.
UPCOMING DATES TO REMEMBER:
One day this - week-STAR TESTING
January 13th - PTA meeting
January 15th - Report cards
January 19th - Holiday MLK Birthday
January 21st - 100th day of school
January 22nd and 23rd - Muffins for Moms
Look for the latest DIBELS report and hopefully the STAR test results Thursday with report cards. Sign and return the DIBELS report and one copy of the report card-keep the other. The STAR test is part of the AR program-it will give your child their reading range which will help them to check out books at their level of reading.
As always, if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me.
Have a great week!
Ms. Messick
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