Welcome Back.
I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas holiday and that you are ready to head into the New Year 2015! We have some wonderful learning adventures ahead which will include our new iPads! The students will be bringing home an iPad acceptable use contract to read and sign with you. Please return no later than the 8th.
On Monday we will spend time sharing about our breaks and considering some New Year’s Resolutions, especially those that apply to our studies and relationships at school. We will review our school’s Student Learning Expectations (SLE’s) as well as classroom and school rules. Reviewing routines and procedures will help us start the year off right.
Religion: Tuesday is Epiphany. We will be having a little classroom door blessing service to bless our classroom for the New Year. Our studies in the coming weeks will focus on the Seven Sacraments and our Steps to Respect lessons.
Reading/Language Arts: Look for corrected Charlotte’s Web final tests and activities in your child’s filer this week. Be sure to take them out and go over them with your child. We are moving back into our reading anthology this week and starting off with a fun story called “Invasion from Mars”. This story/play is based on Orson Wells’ War of the Worlds radio broadcast. The “Essential Question” is: How are performances similar to and different from written stories? Our grammar work will focus on verbs.
The students will begin work on an informational writing piece related to an event in 2014 from the Seattle area. More information to come on this which will include some home research on your child’s topic choice. Students may need to finish up a New Years assignment at home if not completed at school.
Spelling words this week are calendar words. At the bottom of the spelling list you will find the HR SLE’s (Student Learning Expectations). We will be reviewing these expectations in class and the students will need to be able to write and correctly spell these expectations for a test on January 15th.
Math: We will be reviewing for our chapter 4 test which I opted not to give before the break. We will review in class on Monday, and the Monday math homework will be a practice test. This is a required homework sheet that needs to be turned in on Tuesday. The test will be on Tuesday, then we will move on to Chapter 5 which is multiplication by a two and three-digit numbers (the number on the bottom). Having the multiplication facts mastered remains a priority! Students that have not mastered their facts must spend 5-10 focused minutes practicing each day! I see several students visited Xtramath regularly over the break. Nice work!
Social Studies: We have learned about the Louisiana Purchase and some background information on Lewis and Clark. This week we will pack and get started on the journey. The students should be reviewing the 50 state locations and abbreviations for the 50 State test on January 16th. The students will be bringing home some practice sheets for the states and abbreviations.
Don’t forget the $1.00 on one for Uganda. Thank you for your support of our Ugandan friends.
Wishing you a Happy New Year with hope that you all will have many blessings in the year to come.