The long weekend is the perfect time to catch-up on some reading! Please make sure your child is reading for at least 20 minutes per night and recording it in the Reading Log section of the KOALA Book. They earn little rewards from the front office each time they complete a reading log (20 nights of reading).
Spelling homework has been moved to Tuesday this week because of the 3-day weekend. We will still have our spelling quiz on Friday. Remember, you can find the spelling words on the Homework Log, which is always posted by Friday afternoon on our class blog. Spelling homework involves picking 2 activities from the “40 Fun Ways to Practice
Spelling” chart. Please include the numbers and names of the activities that you choose. If you are writing a note about an activity your child did but cannot bring to school, please attach it to the other activity. It can be difficult for me to keep track when the activities are in different places, and I want to make sure I give everyone full credit. Also, I encourage students to practice spelling all week long, but spelling homework from the chart is only assigned on Mondays (Tuesday this week). You do not have to turn in spelling activities each night.
I’m also attaching some challenge spelling words. These are not bonus words and there will NOT be a separate spelling quiz on them, but they might be fun to try at home. If you feel that your child already knows how to spell all of the words from the regular spelling list, you can have your child complete the Monday night spelling homework using any 12 words from the challenge list instead. The challenge words contain the same spelling pattern as the regular words.Your child will still be held accountable for the 12 regular words and the sentence dictation on Friday’s spelling quiz, but I also want each child to be able to practice spelling words that are meaningful and on their level. Please let me know if you have any questions. Silent-e Long Vowels a,i (F)
Last week we started learning about The 7 Habits of Happy Kids. This is based off of the adult book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey. The program contains 7 habits that will help children take control of their lives and be successful. Habit #1 is “Be Proactive.” We will discuss the importance of being a problem solver, doing the right thing (even when no one is looking), and being in charge and taking responsibility for our own behavior. This is probably my favorite habit out of the 7 and the one that I continually refer to the most throughout the year. When students are caught demonstrating this specific habit, they will be recognized with a special red bracelet. The bracelet says “Ask me how I was caught being proactive!” and includes a plate symbol to coordinate with our “Red Plate” recognition program. You can celebrate their proactive-ness with a special “Red Plate” dinner! And feel free to also use the Red Plate when you catch your child being proactive at home!
Additional Writing Information: This week is all about the different types of sentences and their coordinating punctuation marks. We will begin the week with statements and questions. We learn how to “flip a question” to begin an answer and create a complete sentence. This is an important skill for answering text-dependent questions during reading! L:ater in the week, we will learn about commands and exclamations. The students will be learning gestures for each of the types of punctuation. This helps us hear and feel where each sentence ends. Ask your child to read their writing out loud to you using these fun movements. It’s a great way to get them thinking about their writing conventions!
Additional Math Information: Here are some resources to help with this week’s math concepts:
1. http://www.abcya.com/interactive_100_number_chart.htm This is an interactive number grid website that allows you to use a virtual marker to color different patterns. You can have your child color all the numbers they say when they skip count by 2s, 5s, 10s, etc.
2. Thousand Number Grid (Parents) In class we will be using this document to create a thousand chart. You can print it off to make your own thousand chart to keep and refer to at home!