Our Marble Jar is FULL!

Great news! The class filled the marble jar, AGAIN! Their reward is a whole class lunch date with me this Friday J

This week in ELA we are focusing on “comprehension” in our CAFE Model.  Some strategies we are using include: recognizing the main idea and theme.  I’m sure they would love to demonstrate their increased understanding in fluency at home! Last week we focused on fluency and we will enhance our fluency by improving our comprehension. They are really beginning to understand imagery and talking about how setting plays a part in that “picture in our mind”.  I can already see a great improvement in both their writing and reading in just five short weeks.  Continue to have them reading 15 minutes a day at home in their independent reading book.  Some techniques we have found useful in the classroom you may want to adopt for their independent reading at home. Our behaviors that support reading are:  read the whole time, work quietly, select a good fit book, start immediately, and stay in one place.  Every Friday I will have them complete an independent reading book response to tract their reading and writing progress. Our goal for the year is to read 100 chapter books.  I know it seems like a lot, but the students are given time to read in class in the morning. I also count 150 pgs as one book, therefore if your child read a book 300 pgs long that equals 2 books.

In science we are wrapping up our Unit 1: "How Scientists Work?" with a focus this week on: "How can scientists learn from observations?" We will be reviewing all we have learned in science from Tuesday-Thursday with a Jeopardy review game on Thursday. Friday the students will take a unit test and I will encourage them to take their Science textbook home with them on Wednesday to study Wednesday and Thursday.

In math we are focused on multiplying by two-digit numbers.  It is always a good idea to brush up on your multiplication facts at home or in the car.

Finally, we are working on week 4's prefixes and our new Words Their Way spelling lists.  The children are to write one prefix + root word = definition for each prefix tonight (Monday) and complete 3 types of spelling activities in the packet provided by Friday.  Thursday, they are to study BOTH prefixes (weeks 1-4) and their WTW spelling lists. 

IMPORTANT EDIT** I have also allowed the children to decide (since the Science Unit Test is on Friday) individually if they rather take the spelling & prefix quizzes on Thursday OR Friday. It is up to you (parents) and them together. I know it is difficult to study BOTH Science & ELA so I wanted to give options as to not overwhelm them or you**

REMINDERS:
**SCHOLASTIC BOOK ORDERS ARE DUE FRIDAY OCTOBER 11TH**
Parents- thank you for participating in the scholastic book club as we are building up our classroom library and the children are whipping through all the books I have bought over the summer :)

**COLUMBUS DAY IS MONDAY OCTOBER 14TH AND THERE IS NO SCHOOL!**

Seeing "my kids" in action

As explained to "my kids" I love seeing them in action outside of school hours at their extra curricular events. On our calendar I asked that the kids write when and where their activities were. I am willing to travel within a twenty minute radius and will try my best to bring Willie since they are all so interested in meeting him. So my and Willie's first outing was to the girls' soccer game! We had a blast and we were so excited to see them play soccer! It was great to watch them do what they love and they even won! Willie and I cannot wait for our next adventure!!!

I wanted to let everyone know of what our focus is this week in all subjects. 

This week in ELA we are focusing on Fluency in our CAFE Model.  Some strategies we are using include: using intonation for different punctuation marks (i.e. ? !), and using punctuation to enhance phrasing (i.e. stopping at periods, pausing at commas semi colons, etc.).  Last week we focused on comprehension and we will enhance our comprehension by improving our fluency.  We are also diving deeper into our understanding of imagery and talking about how setting plays a part in that.

In science we are focusing on "How Scientists Work?" with a focus this week on: "How do you perform a controlled experiment?" and "What are some science tools?"

In math we are focused on multiplying by one-digit numbers.  It is always a good idea to brush up on your multiplication facts at home or in the car!

Finally, we are working on week 3's prefixes and our new Words Their Way spelling lists.  The children are to write one sentence for each spelling word tonight (Tuesday) and one sentence for each prefix word on Wednesday.  Thursday, they are to study BOTH prefixes (weeks 1-3) and their WTW spelling lists. 

REMINDER- dismissal is at 10:55 AM on FRIDAY! Have a great week!