Happy Halloween Week! I expect this will be a hard week in which to hold your child's attention on school-related activities, between having two EXTRA DAYS OFF and the normal craziness that goes along with Halloween. Because this week is very short (three days, now) I am going to skip both fluency sentences and sight words for this week! So, there will be books to practice on Wednesday, and Thursday, but that will be all for homework this week (unless work not completed during the day comes home to be completed). Oh, just a word about Halloween candy. I am asking you NOT to use it as a snack after Wednesday. Candy gives a quick energy burst, but does not sustain energy over a period of time. From Thursday on, candy sent in will be sent back home to be enjoyed there.
Since we missed school Tuesday, our Halloween parties and parade will happen on Wednesday, instead. In case you weren't sure, costumes are NOT to be worn to school. We hope to get some learning done in the morning, and wearing costumes is not conducive to that. We will take the time to change into them after our party. Also, no weapons, even fake ones, are allowed at school. Thank you to Destiny's mom and to Richard's mom for their contribution to our Halloween party. The party will take place right after the children come in from recess. Yes, that means their lunch is just an hour before the party--not the ideal time--but it's the one time I can assure that we can HAVE the party, so 12:00 is when it will be. We will snack (and play Halloween Bingo, if we have time), and at 12:45, we will change into our costumes. At 1:10, we will prepare to go outside to walk around town. It is supposed to be around 50 degrees and partly sunny on Wednesday. The kids will NOT want to wear jackets, as they will cover up costumes, so please provide layers underneath the costumes that will help keep the children warm. You are welcome to walk with us during the Halloween Parade, but please do not LEAVE with your child unless you let me know you are taking him or her.
We took our first timed addition test last Monday. As I told the children, I do not care WHAT their score on that test was. It is our baseline score for each child. As we practice using addition (and subtraction) they should find themselves learning some of these facts "by heart". As they do, their scores on the timed tests will improve. They are NOT competing against each other--they are only trying to improve their own score each week. To "pass" the addition test and go on to the subtraction test, they must be able to answer all 50 addition facts (sums to 10) in 5 minutes with 90% or higher accuracy. Four children were able to accomplish that last Monday, so they will proceed to the subtraction test (again, 50 problems in 5 minutes with 90% or higher accuracy). My blog post from last week contains directions for games you can play with your child to help with their fact knowledge/ memorization--the Memory game--and all you need is a standard deck of cards! Throughout the next few weeks, I will also be sending home gameboards (on paper--for you to keep) that will provide further practice in these facts in a play-situation. I insist that the children talk out loud about what they are doing (and say the equations they are making) as they play the game because it is the talking about it (and the hearing it) that helps the learning to happen--a multi-modality approach!
Today, I am sending home a world map that contains the seven continents and the five oceans that your child is supposed to be learning. PLEASE KEEP THIS PAPER WHERE YOU AND YOUR CHILD CAN REFER TO IT EACH NIGHT AS YOU PRACTICE THEM FOR A FEW MINUTES. Start with just North America and South America. These two are easier to "anchor" because the children have been practicing their cardinal directions, and have learned that "north" on a piece of paper means towards the tops, and "south" means towards the bottom of the page. Once your child knows those two, add one new continent. Practice those three, adding another new one each day your child is successful with the previous learning, until he or she knows them all. Then, start on the oceans. We will work on them here at school, too. Just before Thanksgiving, I will begin assessing students individually on their ability to recognize and orally identify the seven continents and the five oceans of the world. Once they know the continents and oceans, we will go on to learn that the Atlantic Ocean is "their" ocean, and that they live in Oxford County, in the state of Maine, which is located in the northeast corner of their country of the United States of America, which in turn is in the center section of "their" continent of North America. I will be helping them build a "visual" to help them remember this piece. Right now, I just want them to focus on learning the names of the continents and oceans. Please use the words "north", "south", "west", and "east" when doing this map practice, as they have to show me that they know these cardinal directions, as well. Social Studies happens on Tuesdays and Thursdays for us.
On Mondays and Wednesdays, we will be working on learning the various systems of the human body. Right now, we are studying the skeletal system of the Human Body. We have learned that the skeleton serves the functions of giving our body shape, and protecting our soft, but vital, organs (heart, lungs, stomach, kidneys, bladder, and brain). We also know that the bones work TOGETHER with the muscles to move our body through space. Last week, we talked about the major bones (cranium (skull), spine (backbone), ribs, pelvis (hip bones), femur (upper leg bone), humerus (upper arm), and patella (knee cap)). We learned that an adult's body has 206 bones, but a baby's has closer to 300! Many of a baby's bones fuse together as he or she grows older, and that is why the "average" adult has 206. This week, we will be assembling our own (paper) skeletons, putting the proper bones in their proper places, and learning about what organs they each protect. We will use our Body Systems booklet to read about the body, spend some time working on this system in our own Human Body Flip Book, and will take a few notes about this system to bring home to review with you. Included will be a visual image of the system that your child will have to be able to identify as representing the skeletal system when he or she takes the Human Body test later this year, so PLEASE STORE IT IN A SAFE PLACE from which you can withdraw it when helping your child practice for his/her test.
The other day, I was speaking to a parent from our room, and she asked a question that many of you might wish to know the answer to, so I am including it in this newsletter. We were talking about her child and writing, and she asked me if there was a BEST way to help her child "get better" at writing. Practice makes us all better at anything we are attempting to learn to do. How you practice does matter. In about 4 weeks, I will be giving your child a writing prompt on which he or she is supposed to write, so the topic is already given TO your child. We set aside 45 minutes for the purpose of answering this prompt (more can be given, if the 45 minutes is insufficient), but I am unable to help your child in any way (which is, in itself, very different from how we write during class. For example, I cannot even spell a word for your child. He or she is expected to s-t-r-e-t-c-h the unknown word out and record the letters associated with the sounds he or she hears. They CAN use the word wall/ Tool Notebook/ Word Bank books they have, but I cannot spell for them. They cannot dictate their sentences to me (with the exception of a few special ed kids who have that accommodation), have me write them down for them, and then copy them onto their paper. I know that it how many of you "help" your children when they are writing at home. (I did, too, when I was "just a mom". It was a whole LOT faster than struggling with how to "sound it out", and less frustrating for my child.) But that doesn't really help the kids much for what they have to do here at school. They are expected to write 4-8 sentences (all of which should start with a capital letter AND end with a punctuation mark). The sentences are supposed to be all on the same topic, make sense, and address the prompt they were given. Right now in writing class, I am letting them select their topic from a few choices. I help your child "s-t-r-e-t-c-h out" spell a word he or she wants. (We work on the sounds together as I write these words in their word bank books.) And I try to have them build their writing stamina by slowly increasing the number of sentences they MUST include in their writing each week. Right now, they MUST write AT LEAST four sentences (complete thoughts) on the topic they choose for their writing to be considered "done". They can write more than four sentences, if they so choose. I KNOW this task is hard for many of them, but practice WILL improve what they can do.
Finally, before I leave I want to mention that our Student Council is collecting non-perishables to donate to the local Food Pantry. They are asking for canned or boxed goods, as well as paper products (toilet paper, paper towels, napkins), toothpaste, floss, mouth wash, soap--anything that someone who is without could use. Please consider adding one or two of these items to your own shopping cart to donate to this cause. Thank you. Have a great Halloween weekend!
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