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Welcome to a new week of school. This week we extend a special "HELLO!" to Lily, our new student. She arrives Tuesday, to make 17 students in our class, once again. Isabelle volunteered to be her guide throughout her first weeks of school.
This week, we'll close in on the last nine days of the 2nd quarter/1st semester. I've gathered new data on their achievement and benchmarks/measures of growth in academic areas and you will get the information on their first report card which includes a narrative explaining the data. I would encourage you to step-up the reading with your child. We need to work on fluency (how their reading sounds-smooth, or choppy; labored or easy; too hard or too easy). Finding the just right book, prompting them at difficulty is a learned skill by parents and their teachers. Please re-read the information I sent with you at the first conferences held in early November. If you need a new copy, just send in a note. The flash cards have helped so much, and I really appreciate those of you who have been using them. We currently have 3 students who have mastered 100% of the words. We'll move on to the new list of the 'next' 100 words to know quickly!
For those of you who have not taken advantage of the on-line homework opportunities, I see a vast difference in skill and independence on school work. I have two families who have trouble with technology on a regular basis, with lack of connectivity due to circumstances that cannot be helped. Hop on board and make certain your student uses their usernames and passwords for IXL Math, RAZ-kids Reading, and Sight Words with Samson. We'll begin using these at school, as well.
Thank you for taking on the new Reader's Response Logs. Their writing and efforts to complete the assignments have been so enlightening to me. Your help and assistance makes all the difference in the world. Remember to expect more from them as time goes on. This is about them improving their responses to what they've read, and develop more readily as a fluent writer, with better sentence structure, using adjectives, adverbs, and more complex/compound sentences as they continue writing. Vocabulary development is also a goal of fluent writing that is more interesting. Thank you so much! I have enjoyed responding to their writing with tiny post-its. You're also welcome to write and add comments, also. Join in on the fun. When parents model in their writing, it also helps your child to have fun, enjoy parents' responses to stories, also.
We're working on addition and subtraction to 20 now. We will also begin timed drills on addition and subtraction facts. We're using fact families to teach the nature of reciprocity in these two operations and have introduced multiplication in simple repeated addition sentences. We're working on our flexibility with the 100 chart and the value when it comes to understanding the addition and subtraction of bigger numbers, using manipulatives to help support the understanding, and demonstrating muliplication by using skip counting with the 100 chart, as well. We'll add pennies, nickels, dimes and dollars, soon, as well. It's just another way to show multiplication (repeated addition) and addition larger numbers.
We're planning a February Study Trip, a Valentines' Day mini-celebration, and a 100 day event in the gym, that will be similar to our Johnny Appleseed morning back in September. Your generosity when giving time to the classroom as a volunteer is deeply appreciated. I'll be adding another post soon with all the dates, times and details!
Have a wonderful week and remember to assist and encourage your child with their on-line homework and their continued efforts as authors and illustrators in their Reader's Response Logs!
Mrs. Petty
