November 8, 2009

Greetings!

     Can you believe it's November already?!

    We are continuing our study of Native Americans and can't wait to see all of the family members the students have created!  We will put these outside the classroom with our Eastern Woodlands mural, so if you're in the building, please take a look!  We have been learning about the Wampanoags who were an Eastern Woodlands tribe, and are beginning to learn about other tribes throught North America.  Eventually, we will compare the Wampanoags way of life to that of a tribe that lived in another part of our country (the Plains, the Southeast, etc.).   

     Thank you for continuing to sign reading logs each night, and reviewing your student's goal, plan and reflection on our small group work.  All the reinforcement students are getting in school and at home is pinpointing the specific areas of focus for them as readers and should help them begin to apply these skills independently whenever they read.  The class has been spending a lot of time talking about and practicing finding the main idea and writing summaries, so many individual reading goals are centered on this skill.  It has been so helpful having students bring the same book back and forth to school--students reading has been much more consistent and they are finishing books before moving on to new ones.      

      In math, we will be wrapping up our unit on addition and problem solving this week.   Please continue to support (and remind) students to practice addition facts daily.   Most students are completing 40 basic facts in 2 to 3 minutes, and we'll keep doing mad minute sheets to check in on our progress and speed.  Hopefully the websites that students have brought home are helpful for addition fact practice--there are so many out there!

       In writing, we are continuing to work on various pieces, with periodic strategies for getting started in our writing.  We have had some poetry published, and students who are researching are just beginning their rough drafts.  Keep up the Words Their Way homework to solidify spelling patterns!  Having your student explain why s/he sorted words in a particular way every time you use them--also, have your child try to spell/sort other words that fit into a specific pattern (you can take these directly from their word hunts) to see how your child is applying the pattern.

Mrs. LaRock

Phone:  648-5025, ext. 1604

E-mail:  alarock2@swindsor.k12.ct.us