Hello teammates!  We are in the "game" and working hard.  In reading and spelling, we have begun discussing PAL sounds and will be learning the long vowel sounds while continuing to review short vowel sounds.  I will be discussing PALS at our report card conferences.  Our reading groups, centers, and spelling lessons are reinforcing these sounds.  We are also going over the high-frequency words.  Please practice these with your child daily.  We are reading a variety of books to help the students improve their reading skills while emphasizing the joy of reading.  After you read with your child, check to see if he/she can answer questions about the story using the 5 Ws:  Who?  What?  Where?  When? and Why?  The children are also working on becoming authors in writing.  We are working on breaking our stories into three parts (beginning, middle, end) to help them with organization of their ideas.  They are doing well.  Any type of writing you can get them to do at home will be beneficial.  Please reinforce having them get their thoughts on paper first, and then look back over it to correct punctuation and capitalization.  In math, we have been concentrating on addition.  Please work with your child on solving addition problems.  Everyday situations work well.  Ex.  I have an apple and all three of you children have apples.  How many apples do we have in all?  Also, begin working with them on memorizing their basic addition facts.   In science, we are studying fall animals like owls, bats, and spiders.  We are learning about their habitats and how the animals affect our lives.  We will be very successful in all areas as long as we (parents, students, and teachers) work as a team.  Let's TEAM UP FOR SUCCESS!

High Frequency words for this quarter:  the,  of,  and,  a,  to,  in,  is,  you,  that,  it,  he,  was,  for,  on,  are,  as,  with,  his,  they,  I,  at,  be,  this,  have,  from

Notes: 

This Thursday is an early release day.  Make sure your child has transportation arrangements for this day.

This Friday the children will be out due to the Teacher Workday.  I look forward to seeing many of you for our scheduled conferences.

REMEMBER:

*Read each night.
*Practice your addition and subtraction facts.
*Exercise your body and mind.
*Make learning fun and meaningful!