Status of the Class

Reading
We are wrapping up our unit on fables and folktales this week.  Students are being assessed on their listening comprehension as well as their knowledge of fable and folktale characteristics.
Starting next week we will begin our unit study on the human body.

Skills
We are continuing to review the short vowel sounds as well as decoding 3-letter CVC words.  Every week we will do a making words activity in conjunction with the short vowel sound we are working with.  You will see these letters go home in folders for your child to practice with at home.
We have also been doing a lot of oral word games were students are practicing a variety of skills including identifying beginning and ending sounds, rhyming, and letter/sound manipulation.

Math
Number combinations has been the focus of the past 3 weeks.  Students have been introduced to a variety of new math techniques including sprints and number bonds.  I will be e-mailing a parent letter for everyone to look at that helps you decode some of this new terminology and will hopefully help you in assisting your child with any math work that is sent home.

Writing
We started the year by reviewing the correct formation of letters with an emphasis of taking your time.  Students have transition into the basics of writing a sentence with proper capitalization, spacing, and punctuation.

i-ready
We can't leave this component out!  All students will be finished with the diagnostic assessments for reading and math by the end of the week.  I will be sending home the parent letter to let you know how your child did on these assessments.  It can be a little overwhelming to look at the report so please feel free to contact me with questions or concerns.  Don't fret if your child was placed at a level that is labeled as "Kindergarten".  That leaves a lot of room for growth and does not effect their classroom grade.  What I would prefer you focus on is that actual lessons they are completing at home (and school).  You can check their progress periodically on their log-in page.  We want to make sure they are not consistently failing lessons and having to repeat them.  When using the computer at home, please make sure this area is free of distractions for the time they are on the computer.

I-ready

Busy i-ready testing this morning. Hopefully your child will have access to lessons in both reading and math after today.

i-ready

I'm still fielding a lot of questions about i-ready and I want to make sure I'm addressing every one!  It's a big part of how we assess the kids so I believe it's important to understand what they are doing and how you as a parent can help.

As a reminder please have your child log on i-ready for approximately 15-20 minutes every day.  They should probably rotate between reading and math.  Unfortunately, due to still being a diagnostic window, the math is unavailable for most students.  Stick to reading for THIS WEEK ONLY.

Once all diagnostic testing is done, I will send a report home to let you know how your child scored in this baseline assessment.  Remember, this is not for a grade.  Instead, we want to utilize this program to reach every learner.  Each student will get their own trajectory and specific lessons and practices assigned to them based on how they scored on the initial baseline.

Many students will test into a level that i-ready recognizes as "Kindergarten".  Does this mean your child is below level?  No, it simply means that they need lessons that are labeled as Kindergarten skills according to the i-ready scope and sequence.

What if the lessons are too easy?  My blanket statement is that the computer assessed their knowledge and they are just going to have to work through them because they did not know the information on the diagnostic.  For a few students I will have the capability to skip a lesson or two if I'm 100% certain they need to advance.

I had a parent ask me about tracking their progress.  On your child's home page their is a tab where you can see their progress.  It will be their progress over the course of the year, so you will have to monitor it if you want to really keep up with their weekly lessons.  I will be looking on my end to see that children are completing a minimum of 2 lessons each week in each subject area (a total of 4 lessons).  They will have access to computers first thing in the morning in my room as well as once a week during their center time.

Scholastic Book Clubs

Monday your child came home with Scholastic Book flyers.  Attached was a gold sheet detailing how to order books.  A few reminder points:

• To order online go to www.scholastic.com/readingclub
• Enter Activation code: GVG88 

• Orders are due by Friday, September 11

• You can order from ANY catalog (not just the ones I sent home)

• Every book you buy earns points for our class and allows me to buy books and other resources

Resources

The school-wide resource calendar has been finalized.  You will see a new classroom calendar in your child's folder on Monday or Tuesday.  You will be informed of which days we have our resources on.  Resource classes go from 10:20-11:05.  Please pay special attention to days we have PE and dress your child in the appropriate shoes.

We will have library check-out EVERY Thursday.  Students can check out one book as long as they returned the previous one they were borrowing.  Please have all books returned by the following Wednesday.  If your child misses a Thursday check-out I will send them with another class the following day.

The calendar will also list which child is in charge of "Friday Treat".  Please glance over the calendar each  month to see if you are responsible for sending in the treat on a particular Friday.

Good looking group!

We are working on our rituals and routines this week. One of them is what we should look and sound like around school. Students should be at a voice level 0 (no talking), facing forward in line, on the right side of the sidewalk.

New garden

A huge thank you to Anthony Eddins for making our classroom garden look so beautiful. Not only did he weed and mulch, but he planted some pretty new plants too.

WELCOME

Thanks for visiting our class blog!
Come back to check often for things happening in our class, date reminders, and access to great online resources!

We're growing plants!

A few photos

The first picture is our sign we made for our FSA buddies in 4th grade.

In math we are working with various patterns including skip counting.