Dear Parents,                                                     September 26, 2011

I would like to thank the parents that were able to make it to Wednesday’s Parent Meeting.  I hope that you found it informative.

We have completed theme 1 in our reading series.  We start theme 2 – “Surprise!” this week.  We will be reading stories that have a surprise in them.  Our reading strategy this week is questioning and the comprehension skill that will help us is noting details.  As we read, we try to pay attention to details within the story.  Paying attention to the details, using the pictures, and questioning why events are happening will help us to understand the story. Our phonics focus this week is the short sound of /o/ and d, l, w, and x.  Our spelling words are from unit 7 and will focus on the short sound of /o/.  Please check the daily planner for homework.  Our grammar focus is using an uppercase letter for names. We will be practicing these concepts in our language arts center activities this week.

Math finds us practicing our subtraction concepts and applying them to word problems.  In religion, we are learning that God is Holy.  We are going to go to church with our buddies tomorrow and hunt for holy objects.  Science finds us ready to visit multipurpose room 1 on Wednesday and examine our plants under the microscopes and record what we observe!  We should be ready for our science test later this week.

Please remind your child to bring their library book to school tomorrow so that they may check out a new one.

Water bottle sales continue on Tuesday and Thursday.  Thank you for your support!

At the Parent Meeting, I mentioned a wonderful website to help with spelling.  The website is spellingcity.com.  Every week I post the current unit words on the site.  You just have to go on to the site, click on find a list, then, type in my name (Heidi Manning) and you will see the spelling list.  You have three options – 1) teach – the words are read to you, spelled out and used in a sentence.  2) games – the site plugs in the spelling words into games – check out the HangMouse game based on Hangman  3) test – you can actually type in the words after they are read to you.  What a great resource!!  Another great website is learninggamesforkids.com.  This site has a variety of games.  Check out math lines 10.  We play this in the lab for practice of our basic facts.  Beware, it is addictive!

I will be out of the classroom tomorrow as I am attending a workshop.  I am leaving the children in good hands…Miss Manning will be substituting.

It is “All About…Mia Romero” this week.  Congratulations!

Friday in a noon dismissal day as the teachers have a staff meeting.

If you have any questions or concerns, please let me know.  Have a wonderful week!

Mrs. Manning