Tuesday, January 18, 2011

This is going to be a short, but very BUSY week in our classroom. Not only will be reviewing for and taking our Unit 3 Reading Benchmark Test, but we will also begin DIBELS testing. I'm going to be asking the kids to focus a lot on reading, and I know they'll do their best on both tests. You can help at home by continuing to practice reading aloud with your child along with making sure he/she is well-rested and gets a good breakfast each morning.

As I mentioned in an earlier newsletter, I have challenged the kids to meet certain goals for each test. I KNOW all of them are capable of reaching the following goals on the DIBELS test:

86 words per minute (or better) with at least 96% accuracy.

Thank you for encouraging your child to do his/her best on all of our tests this week.

We will be starting a new unit in math this week as well. Mr. Elbert will begin teaching our geometry unit on Tuesday, and he will continue to teach math for the next 4-5 weeks. He is slowing taking things over in our classroom. This week, he'll be teaching my Intervention group, Social Studies, and Math. He will also take over the morning routines and the end of the day routines. I will continue to be in the classroom supervising him, as well as teaching in the other subject areas. Next week, Mr. Elbert will add small reading groups to his responsibilities.

In writing, we'll be working on a compare/contrast essay. The students will be asked to choose two things in nature, and then tell how they are alike and different in a one to two page essay. We will work through many different activities this week to help the students complete this project. Last week, the kids wrote news stories, and we taped them using the Flip camera. The kids thought this was a lot of fun!

During Social Studies, the kids are finishing up learning about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. They will be thinking about dreams they have for their families and futures as they work in Social Studies this week. In Science, they are continuing to work on measurement activities. We are nearing the end of this FOSS kit, and Mrs. Spurr will be assessing them soon over what they learned during this unit. They will begin working on the Physics of Sound FOSS unit at the end of January or beginning of February.

Last week, we took our mid-year math assessment using our Follow the Leader math program. The skills on this assessment fit well with the national math standards as well as with our own math curriculum. There are skills on the assessment that we have not yet covered, however, I was very happy overall with the growth that many of the students made between the beginning of the year and now. I will be sharing some of this information with your at conferences in February.

Homework for Tuesday, January 18

• Home Link 6.1
• Read (try to spend 10-15 minutes having your child read aloud to you)
• Look over, sign, and return Unit 4 & 5 Math Tests

NO HOMEWORK JANUARY 19 (12:00 Early Out)

Homework for January 20

• Home Link 6.2
• Cursive worksheet
• Read

**There are NO spelling words this week.**

Next week, we will be back to our "normal" schedule. The kids will bring home a new spelling list next Monday, and we'll begin work on Unit 4 in reading.

Have a great week!

Mrs. Vroegh