9/24 Weekly News

September 24, 2008
Dear Families,
Hello and Happy Fall! I can’t believe its Wednesday already. This week has been really busy with “extras” like Fire Safety, picture day, and the GATES reading test. Other things we’ve started are:

Reading: Students have officially started writing to me in their response journals. IN addition to thinking and writing about our reading, we are working on proper letter format and proofreading our writing. It is a great exercise in writing and thinking about reading, as well as being a great way for the students and I to connect personally. All students will have turned in one reading response this week and should have received a response back from me.

Writing: We are continuing to work on exercises for thinking of things to write about. Last week we made a “Special Place” map. This week we “Mined our Hearts” to create a heart map and brainstormed lists of moments in our lives that evoke emotions such as sadness, hope, embarrassment and worry. Again all of these exercises will help us write thoughtfully in our journals. Students will be developing these “seed Ideas” when we start looking at memoirs.

Math: Math has been interrupted this week with the 3 things I mentioned earlier. The work we have done has been in place value and the language of word problems. Next week all students will be receiving their Everyday Math journals and prepping for NECAPs.

Science/SS – We are continuing to study U.S Geography and some vocabulary that goes along with it. The students were VERY excited to come to school this Monday to see how they did on their map quizzes. As is always the case, many students learned lessons about capitalization, neatness, and spelling. Any student who passed earned a “Patriotic Flyer” and students who didn’t pass still have 3 weeks to practice. I am confident that all students will pass!!
We are just starting our Human Body unit. We’ve experienced a few “Body Breaks” in which we’ve had a quick 5 minute interactive lessons about our bodies. Additionally, we will be listing the body systems that we’ll be studying and will brainstorm a list of what we want to learn about the Human Body.
**The SMILEDOCS program will begin next week. This is a group of UVM medical students who come for 4 sessions to teach the children about the Human Body. They will be here on Wednesdays through October. **

Testing – You should have received something at home today regarding NECAP testing. NECAPs will start next Thursday (10/2) and will go through the week of the 10th. I’ll be doing some test prep over the next week. You may see this come home.

Reminder that you can find the spelling lists online at the Endeavor webpage.

News from 9/17

 Sept. 16
Dear Families
HELLO! I thought I would keep the news fairly brief this week since we had curriculum night on Monday.

The students are continuing to settle in nicely here in Endeavor. I have already seen them grow in many ways.

We are continuing to learn and practice classroom routines and procedures. Some things we need extra work on are quiet transitions and walking through the halls. It's hard to do these things but we have discussed that it is because there are so many students that share our school; we must be considerate of others.

Students have been assessed in math, spelling, and reading fluency and comprehension. Many students will continue to be assessed in the core content areas.

Additionally, students have received their response journals and started recording the books they've read this year. Yesterday, they practiced writing a response. We'll focus on our response journals this week and students will begin writing to me next week.

We also started our cursive practice this week! I have asked the students to keep pace with the class while I assess their skills and form. Once I see that they are ready to work independently, I will set them free to practice on their own.

Wow! The students have also taken off on their mapping program. They are loving it. I can hardly get their attention when they have maps in front of them. (Most of the time, that's a good thing:)) I will be supplementing their learning of geography with basic mapping skills and fun, interactive geographical "quizzes" and discussions. What a fun way to learn!

I also wanted to clarify the new system for signing off HOMEWORK. What I will ask students to do is to independently check off that they have done their nightly reading. THEN, on Thursday night, parents will sign off that the students truly did do their reading. If they missed any night of reading that week, parents won't initial.

One thing that I have not yet discussed is weekend reading. I know that many of us read on the weekend. Please, take note of any weekend reading. It will give students "credit" for weeknight reading.
That is enough for now I suppose. Thank you for coming to Curriculum Night last night. If you weren’t able to make it, you should see a small “pile” of stuff come home for you tonight. If there are any additional questions, please, let me know.

Reminder that Alice Brown will be our room parent. She may be contacting you to coordinate special activities or classroom help.

Thank you for your support. Have a great week.
Cara 

(So much for brief huh?:))


Next week

Orange Group

1. these
2. theme
3. free
4. queen
5. dream
6. teach
7. desk
8. mess
9. arrest
10. pest
11. correct
12. check
13. elect
14. trend
15. spend
16. creep
17. teeth
18. street
19. complete
20. concrete

Week 2

Words with long e and Short e

Blue Group

Doubling with -ed and - ing

STUDY PRACTICE

1. cross
2. crossed
3. crossing
4. miss
5. missed
6. missing
7. puff
8. puffed
9. puffing
10. smell
11. smelled
12. smelling
13. clip
14. clipped
15. clipping
16. padded
17. shopping
18. trapped
19. tugging
20. scarred

Hello Families!

Welcome to my blog!  This is a first for me so thank you for your visit!  It is pretty exciting.  

Again, this is a test.  I am so happy to be giving it a try!  Soon, i'll post pictures of our classroom,a schedule,  and our weekly newsletters.  

Don't forget, Curriculum Night is Monday, September 15th.  

See you then!