Dear Parents,                                                     October 4, 2010

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, and x.  Our spelling words 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 learning subtraction concepts. In religion, we are learning about holy objects in church.  We had a fun time in the science lab examining our plants with magnifying glasses and microscopes and recording our observations.  We should be ready for our test this week.  Social studies, finds us learning about families.

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.  I have gone on to the site and have set up a new list for unit 7.  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!!

It is “All About…Torre Perez” this week.  Congratulations!

Friday in a noon dismissal day as the teachers have a staff meeting and it is the Harvest Hoedown.  Sounds like a wonderful time.  Hope to see you there!

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

Mrs. Manning