Week 22

Welcome to week twenty-two! This week’s theme is: Presidential Week!

If you want to order anything from our Scholastic Book Order look for the flyers that were sent home with your child.  Orders are due by Thursday, January, 24^th.

On Friday, your child’s social studies teacher gave a Martin Luther King, Jr. presentation.  Be sure to discuss this important holiday with your child.

Encourage your child to watch the presidential inauguration news with you at home.

Our library time has been changed to Monday at 12:15, right after lunch. Please remember to send your child’s library book in on Monday.

Mrs. Slade’s class has earned over thirty line-up points.  They will be allowed a special classroom activity on Friday during class time.  Mrs. Slade’s class will be making tube sock snowmen.  These students deserve a big hug and lots of praise for lining up within a five second countdown!  Mrs. Piacenti’s class is still working to reach the thirty goal.  As of today they only have 2 more points left to earn.  If Mrs. Piacenti’s class reaches the thirty goal by Friday they will also join in the snowman making activity.  Talk with you student about the importance of lining up quickly for safety and for protection of our instructional time.

Our book fair will be taking place on February 4-8 from 8:00 – 4:00 pm. Look for a flyer with more information about what books will be offered to come home soon.

Here is a look at what we are learning this week:

Art: Students will continue working on their student directed art projects using mediums such as collage, pastels, paper construction, and water color.

ASL:  Signing time with Alex and Leah, food, cooking, and gardening fun.  If you want to send in any healthy snacks for thirty to learn to sign and eat, please feel free!

Dance:  Students will study the different types of movement.

Health: Hygiene. 

Math: Students will continue to learn addition strategies.

Music: Drum beats, recognition and names of notes on the staff- Children are learning FACE and Every Good Boy Does Fine mnemonics to help remember names of notes.

PE: Various games in the gym.

Reading: Large Group Phonics:  Consonant Blend Review, Small Group Phonics: Vowel Combinations: au, aw, Shared Reading: Around Town “Grandpa’s
Corner Store,” Guided Reading by leveled groups, Centers (SSR, iPods, Computers, Partner reading

Science: Students will finish up their study of physical changes and begin studying electricity.

Social Studies: Students will continue studying the stone age.

Spanish: Students will begin studying the words for bread=pan, milk=leche, juice=jugo, cookie=galleta, ice cream=helado.  

Writing:

• Writing: Hand writing with Mrs. P: This week will be learning the penmanship of cursive “c.”

• Composition with Mrs. P: This week we will be studying the difference between fact and opinion in preparation for beginning opinion writing next week.

• Spelling with Mrs. S: Students are grouped by levels and engage in Words Their Way sorting activities.  Students sort words into categories by sounds patterns according to their present level of functioning.  We finished our MOY (middle of year) assessment. Those who were absent need to make this up while the others continue to work on their new sorts for the week.

• Sentence Fundamentals with Mrs. S:: Students will continue their study of PENSMARK, a self-regulating strategy developed to teach sentence fundamentals: capital letters, end marks, making sense, simple sentence formulas, and subject/ verb identification. PENSMARK is a mnemonic device that stands for Pick a formula, Explore words to fit the formula, Note the words, Search and Check, Mark out the imposters, Ask “Is there a verb?”, Root out the subject, and Key in on the beginning, middle, and end. Everyone has mastered the three requirements of a complete sentence: Capital letter, End mark, and “Makes sense.” We finished the prerequisite skills for identifying subject nouns and verbs:  Now we are applying those skills to identify the subjects and verbs in the sentences.  This is a prerequisite skill for the second grade benchmark skill: I can correctly use adjectives, adverbs and the past tense of irregular verbs.  Since subject-verb identification may be review for some, students will work at their own pace advancing to the next level as soon as they receive a score of 100 on three consecutive trials.  Some of the students are finished writing sentences using the SV formula for present tense verbs with four consecutive 100% in a row.  This week they will write SV sentences using the past and future tense of verbs from their verb banks. Next week we will use linking verbs…their favorite!