December 12-16 Newsletter
Pamela Herbert
We will be finishing up Unit 2 on kindness. We will be reading a version of “Cinderella” by Fabio Coen. We will also be talking about different aspects of a fairy tale. Ask your child what kinds of clues authors use to help let us know that a story is a fairy tale. We also will review what it means to be jealous and how jealousy can hinder us from being kind to others.
Dictation rules this week focus on: the sss sound using C to spell (ex: Cinderella, cellar, patience, etc.) We will also look at the long a sound especially focusing on ai spelling. We will review compound words and multiple syllable words. I will also teach silent letters ( t, w, k, l, h, b, igh, and ough).
We will also be reviewing commas in a series, capital letters: at the beginning of sentences, days of the week, and proper nouns, underlining titles of books, quotations and commas in dialogue, commas in: days of the week, dates, greetings, closings and dialogue. We will also be working in detail on how to correctly punctuate dialogue.
We will be finishing up our unit on friendly letters. Please make sure your child knows how to correctly write a heading, date, greeting, body, closing and their name in a friendly letter. Last week they were supposed to do one with all of these parts done correctly, however, most of them had to redo it today because they had some mistakes.
We will be reading Dragons of Blueland. This is a continuation from My Father’s Dragon and Elmer and the Dragon. We will continue with our beloved Dragon as he ventures to find his home and family.
In math we will be finishing unit 5. We will be working more with line segments and how to name3 a shape using lettered points. (ex: Triangle ABC) We will be learning about three-dimensional shapes: rectangular prism, cylinder, sphere, cones and pyramids. We will also be looking at symmetrical shapes and shape names: rhombus, kite, square, triangle, rectangle, quadrilaterals, hexagons, pentagons, heptagons, hexagons, octagons, parallelograms, and trapezoids. We will be reviewing: addition, money, estimating, time, ½ of a shape, even and odd numbers, making change, patterns, temperature, shapes, money, word problems, tallies, place value, and graphs counting by 1000, making change, place value to the thousands place, trapezoids, line segments, and arrays.
In science we will be continuing with our unit on rocks, soil and fossils. We will be looking at fossils from long ago. The main question to answer is what can we conclude about life long ago by looking at a fossil? If we have time I would also like to talk some more about nutrition and body systems.
In social studies we will be focusing on Native Americans, continents and oceans, and landforms.
We will also be doing our Unit 2 district test for language arts. Remember this is not something the students need to study for. We have been studying all unit. However, you can review good test taking strategies with them if you like. The different parts are reading comprehension, spelling, vocabulary, checking skills (this unit is on commas in a series, capital letters: at the beginning of sentences, days of the week, and proper nouns, underlining titles of books, quotations and commas in dialogue, commas in: days of the week, dates, greetings, closings and dialogue), and fluency Words Per Minute.
Dates to Remember:
Monday December 12 School Site Council Meeting 7:00
Tuesday December 13, Reading Comprehension Test
Wednesday, December 14 Spelling and Vocabulary Assessment
Thursday December 15 Checking Skills Assessment
Friday. December 16 “Cinderella” Assessments: Spelling, vocabulary, dictation, “Cinderella ” comprehension,
Math Unit 5 Assessment
Family Game Night 6-9
Herbert High Fives
Howard Yu- Great Participation!!
Paul Mathew- Great improvement on focusing on class activities!!
Samuel Lee- Having a positive attitude!!
Holiday “Party”
For our holiday gift exchange we will have each of the kids bring a small “trinket” for each of the kids in the class. We will have the kids decorate a bag and have each child walk around and drop their trinket into each bag. The trinkets should be wrapped; it makes it so much more fun to open! You do not have to participate. However, if you do, please bring enough for everyone in the class. We have 27 kids. Trinkets can be whatever you want to do: a sticker, a small toy, a pencil, erasers, a piece of candy (remember allergies), anything you and your child would like to give. We will also have some goodies and possibly a holiday book or movie. This will be on the last day of school before break: December 21.