Dear Parents,              September 23, 2013

A BIG “Thank You!” to the parents that volunteered in our classroom on Friday for Primary Centers! The students had a wonderful time!

Our reading strategy this week is evaluation and our comprehension skill that will help with evaluating a story is cause and effect.  Paying attention to what causes something to happen can help us understand the story and evaluate whether we enjoyed the story or not, and why.  Please practice this comprehension skill when reading nightly with your child.  Ask why certain events happened in the story.  Ask if they enjoyed the story and why.  It is fine if they did not enjoy the story as long as they can tell you why.  Let them explain their favorite part or the funniest part and ask them to tell you why they feel that way.  Our phonics focus is the sounds of the consonants b, h, r, and g and the short sound of /i/.  Our new spelling words are from unit 5. Our grammar focus is on using an end mark at the end of a sentence.  We will be completing our first theme in reading this week and will be taking our assessments on Friday.

Our math unit “Numbers are Everywhere” is close to wrap up. We will be finishing it next week. But this week, our main focus will be on addition sentences and subtraction sentences. Our homework this week will be a lot of review of what we have learned thus far as we are entering our wrap up to the unit.

In Social Studies we will be taking our first Unit test.

In science, we will be continuing our study of plants. We will have one final lesson before we begin preparing for our test next week.

In religion, we focus on our Family Life Series again with lessons on how Families Love and Help.

Reminders for the week:

• Our first field trip is on Monday! Yay! Students are to be in uniform. Please check the weather as I have a feeling it will be warm in Santa Paula! We will be eating a quick snack before we leave but will be back for lunch at school!
• As a reminder, if your child would like a snack during recess, please remember to pack just 1 healthy snack. Recess is only 15 minutes and goes by in a flash!
• Please remind your child to bring their library book to school Tuesday so that they may check out a new one.
• Friday is a full day of school with Families in the late afternoon.
• It’s “All About…. Zachary!” Congratulations!

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

Ms. Manning