I would like to thank everyone for all of their endless hours of volunteer work at school and in my classroom! Our Greek Festival was a great success thanks to all of our wonderful parents. The field trip to Tellus went great, and your participation in Boosterthon has been awesome! Don’t forget that we earned “Black Out Day” for Monday, so send in a pillow and flashlight/headlight for a day of reading fun! We will watch some super online author interviews and begin reading my favorite series Indian in the Cupboard. It will be an inspirational day for some of our future authors.
In order to make a 3 on one of our Language Arts Standards, students must be able to identify the subject and predicate. It is difficult to identify the subject and predicate unless students can identify nouns (subjects), action verbs, helping verbs, and linking verbs (predicate). We have been working on nouns in class, using some wonderful Smartboard interactive lessons, a noun hunt, and a Time for Kids scavenger hunt that matches our standards. Students will bring home an assignment on irregular plural nouns which is due Wednesday. The f to v rule is difficult for them ( ex: wolf – wolves). Please help your child with this homework Monday and Tuesday night, and please make sure it is in the green folder and returned to school Wednesday.
We will also need to focus on verbs for the next few weeks, and I will be sending home homework for helping, linking, and action verbs. We will learn a cute song about helping verbs, and I would highly recommend practicing it at home. I run into former students all the time who tell me they still remember the helping verbs because of this song. If your child has difficulty with the tune, it can also be sung to “Jingle Bells.”
Helping Verbs: Sung to the tune “Row, Row, Row Your Boat”
Helping verbs, helping verbs, there are 23
Am is are - was and were - being been and be
has have had - do does did - shall should will and would
There are five more helping verbs may might must can and could
Since we will have more grammar homework this week and “Black Out Reading Day Monday,” I will not require students to keep a reading log at home this week. There will not be one in the folder. Please use this time to help your child with grammar homework.
Students may bring home a reading report form to work on if they choose to do so. We use these in class when we have finished a book and keep them in our reading folders. Students will earn money at the end of the nine weeks for the books they have read. I also keep their old logs in this folder so we have a reading record for them.
We will be starting the concept of multiplication this week, and students are going to love the centers. We will begin memorizing our tables the following week after we have finished our centers on concepts this week. I will continue to send homework on standards already covered because practice makes permanent.J
In science, we will be studying fossils, and in social studies, we will study government. If your child needs to study more for Greece and/or rocks and minerals, I will write a note in the agenda.
I still need to assess the geography standard this week for location of Greece, longitude, latitude, Prime Meridian, and Equator. I will let you know if your child needs to study more to earn a 3 on this standard.
