I want to extend another thank you to all of you for my wonderful Christmas gifts. You are all so kind, thoughful, and generous. I feel so appreciated and taken care of, you all spoil me! Thank you! Also, thank you for the great class gift! I love TJ Maxx and can't wait to go find some new clothes and Tymon and I are using the Ciao Mambo gift card tonight for New Year's Eve! Thank you, thank you, thank you!
We have a new student joining our class on Tuesday. His name is Jackson and he is moving here all the way from Tennessee! I am so excited for him to join us and can't wait to welcome him into our room.
This week in reading we are looking into the essential question: How can one person change the way you think? We are working on the skills of cause and effect, visualizing, and the prefixes un and re. We will also take the SRI test agin on Wednesday morning. This will be the second time we've taken it and I hope it will show growth in reading for all the kiddos!
In writing this week we are starting an opinion piece. The kids will be choosing an activity that they think others should try. They will then have to come up with three reasons why people should try it to support their opinion.
In math this week we are working on order of operations. We are then taking a couple days to review and review the different concepts we worked on this quarter: using properties to multiply and divide, multiplication and division as an unknown factor, and multiplying and dividing fluently. We will reassess if needed.
Starting this week we will also be starting a home and school multiplication memorization program. It is so important to memorize the multiplication facts as it makes division easier and as the kids get into more difficult multiplication and divison in higher grades, it make that much easier and quicker as well. With this little program I will send home a letter each week for 6 weeks in their Tuesday folders. Each week it will have 6 random facts for them to work on memorizing at home. Each day they will take little practice quizzes practicing those facts and then on Friday they will have a short test on those facts. This will hopefully help us get our multiplication facts down!!
Starting this month as well, I am starting a chapter book challenge! I was trying to think of a way to get the kids more excited about reading chapter books, so we will try this and see how it goes! We now have a board in the classroom with spots for the kids to sign their name as they finish a certain number of chapter books. They can sign at 3 chapter books, 5, 7, 10, 15, and 20. In order to sign they must fill out a little chapter book summary sheet every time they finish a chapter book and turn that in to me so that I can keep track of how many they have finished. Once they get to 10 chapter books and again to 20 chapter books they get to pick out a book (around the $5 and under range) from scholastic and I'll order it for them! I've never tried this before, but I hope it will spur some excitement for reading, and specifically reading chapter books!
Upcoming Events:
January:
- 3rd Back to School
- 4th SRI
- 10th-11th Winter NWEA testing from 8:30-10:30
- 13th End of 2nd quarter
- 16th PIR day-no school
- 20th Report cards sent home
- 9th Valentine's Day Celebrations 10:30. Early dismissal at noon.
- 10th & 13th No School
Enjoy your last couple days of break and I can't wait to see all of you on Tuesday!
Code Word: Happy New Year!