Weekly Overview - Dec.12-16

HERE’S WHAT’S HAPPENING IN ROOM 14…DECEMBER 12-16

Dear Parents:

Please remember that our holiday program is TONIGHT at 6:30 in the cafeteria! Your child should report to Room 14 between 6:00 and 6:15. The program should be over by 7:00 since Kinder and 1^st are the only performers. We’ll see you there! 

LANGUAGE ARTS:

Handwriting/Phonograms: We will learn aw (short o anywhere in the word) and au (short o in the beginning or middle of the word). There will be a quiz on Wednesday.

saw    draw    lawn    crawl    awful    auto   sauce    because

Reading: We will be reading the first story for Theme 7 of our next book. The theme is “We Can Work it Out”, and our story is called “That Toad is Mine”. The reading and comprehension strategies for this story are summarizing and problem solving. Please continue to have your child read the Take Home books and show his/her understanding of the story by retelling it to you and also by talking about the characters- what are they like, why do they act the way they do... Please allow time for nightly reading so that your child can improve his/her decoding and fluency abilities.

Spelling: Because of our Holiday program on Monday night, there will be no spelling homework until Tuesday. That means that our practice test will be on Thursday and our final test will be on Friday as usual.

1. saw     2. paws     3. draw     4. because    5. goes

6. soon     7. too     8. two     9. us     10. then

English: We will review all skills through sentence writing and then we will have a quiz on too-two-to and ‘s on Friday.

MATH: We have finished the first part of our geometry unit and so on Tuesday there will be a test of all that we have covered so far with respect to plane and solid figures. For the rest of the week the students will be working on spatial activities related to shapes- how to use pattern blocks to fill in random shapes in a variety of ways.

SCIENCE: We are going to begin a study of the Water Cycle and how water goes through a variety of changes and stages: evaporation-water vapor (gas), condensation (clouds) and precipitation (rain, hail, snow). This week we will focus on the stages of evaporation and condensation.

**************************SPECIAL NOTES***********************

Progress reports will resume after the break. I am involved with the 2^nd grade music program on Tuesday evening and do not have time to do the progress reports. Please check your child’s work packet carefully and note any weaknesses from this week’s work. Please let me know if you have any questions.  

A special Thank You to our Holiday party planners and helpers who are busily planning Friday’s party for us. Friday is an early dismissal day- 1:37.

Have a wonderful holiday break and Happy New Year!

Sincerely,

Weekly Overview - Dec.5-9

HERE'S WHAT'S HAPPENING IN ROOM 14...DECEMBER 5-9

Dear Parents:

     Thank you to those families who were able to donate for our Family-to-Family program! Here are a couple of Wish-list items for Room 14: I need someone who enjoys word processing who would be willing to type up our Hidden Villa stories- a great volunteer hour opportunity; we are in need of boxes of Kleenex!

LANGUAGE ARTS:

Writing: We will be working on some seasonal writing.

Reading: Because we have finished our Themes 5 and 6, we will be having our theme tests on Tuesday and Thursday: vocab. will be on Tuesday and story comprehension will be on Thursday. You may want to help your child do a flashcard review Monday evening!

English: We will be adding a new skill to our English skills: using to, too or two. There will also be a skill review quiz on Wednesday. It will not include the three “to’s”.

Spelling: There will not be any spelling word and sentence homework this week. We will have a spelling review quiz of 15 words on Friday. Your child should review these words as needed.

1. she    2. the    3. can’t    4. my    5. look   6. our    7.  of     8. don’t    

9. are    10. little   11. why   12. down   13. here   14. mother   15. father

MATH: There is a wide variety of content to cover this week. We will be identifying geometric solids (cone, cylinder, sphere, rectangular prism and cube) and discussing their attributes with respect to flat sides and vertices. We will also sort them by attribute. Then we will work with 2-D shapes to combine them to make new shapes. For example a trapezoid, a rhombus and a triangle can be combined to make a hexagon. Our last topic will be use of position vocabulary: above, below, right, left, in front of, behind, near and far.

SCIENCE: Our discussion will continue to be about wind and comparisons of the different tools that are used to measure various aspects of wind. For example, an anemometer measures the speed of the wind, whereas a wind vane determines the direction from which the wind is originating.

SOCIAL STUDIES: Our social studies discussion question will focus on “How can we learn about others?”. This is a timely topic as we are in a season that has many different holidays celebrated.

*********************SPECIAL NOTES***************************

*Dec. 12  – Holiday program rehearsal assembly – 12:45

                   Night Program – arrive at Room 14 at 6:00 to

                   drop off your child- program begins at 6:30 in

                   the cafeteria. Information about expected

                   dress will be coming soon.

*Dec. 16 - Holiday party – Please have your child bring a bag to carry home artwork and party treats - 1:37 dismissal

*Jan. 3 (a Tuesday!) – school resumes- Happy New Year!

Please contact me if you have any questions or concerns.

Sincerely,

Mrs. Pierce