Week 24 "With Glowing Hearts"

VANCOUVER 2010

Although the Winter Olympics is not a focus of our classroom instruction, I do like to teach some lessons that reflect on the spirit of the games. This also marks the  beginning of our READING OLYMPICS! Good Luck everyone, I just bought a new book, The Lightning Thief. I know the movie came out this last weekend, but my goal is to read the book before I see the movie. In my class we will have a board showing how many minutes each student has read during this month.

This week we have a lot going on, tomorrow in particular. Here is our schedule Tuesday morning:
8:30 Computers, then Music Practice, then Bookmobile, and then Recess, and finally Grandparents Lunch at 10:30. Kind of fits the Olympic Theme "With Glowing Hearts." Thanks for all those that are planning on coming in. Busy Morning! Then in the afternoon, there is the "Beat the Teacher Assembly." I actually had a couple of students that beat me. They will be receiving a poster and their choice of a candy bar. The rest of the day we will be trying to focus our attention on this weeks agenda.  Here are some of the things I will be concentrating on this week:


Phonics & Spelling: The c and g in the English language follow certain rules, and I have been teaching the students these rules all year, now it is time to reinforce those rules in our spelling words this week.
Rule 2 - The letter c before e, i, or y says s (cent, city, cycle), but followed by any other letter says k (cat, cot, cut).
Rule 3 - The letter g before e, i, or y says j (page, giant, gym), but followed by any other letter says g (gate, go, gust). The letters e and i following g do not always make the g say j (get, girl, give).

Grammar: In the Daily Grams this week we will look at the following areas:
Capitalization and Punctuation found in direct quotations, titles, greetings, and in proper nouns. Some of the Parts of Speech we will talk about include adjectives that tell how many, adverbs that compare (using the er or est ending - bigger, biggest), and pronouns.
The Grammar in the reading program takes a look at the main verb along with helping verbs.


Reading: The theme this week is "Protecting Our Natural Resources," which also ties in nicely with the Olympics, and the Canadians quest to protect the beautiful Northwest Environment. (If you find anything to tie into this weeks lesson; articles, stories, pictures, please send them with the students). The story we will be reading is a nonfiction article that gives information about real people. The strategy that the students will be modeling this week is monitoring their comprehension by comparing and contrasting. The easiest way to work on this skill at home is to compare the characters found in the story with what is happening in your child's life. Make a list of all the similarities and a list of all the differences. By verbalizing this your child will be able to make other connections as they build on their reading skills.

By the way, don't I have the best looking door! It is awesome! I have some wonderful room mothers that went out of their way to make a wonderful "Manners Meal," for Manners Day on our celebration of Valentine's Day. But the door, THANKS! It fits my personality. Kudos also go out to the wonderful "Teacher Appreciation Week" goodies from the PTA, it was all wonderful. Thanks for taking the time to appreciate us as professional educators.

Some more things that we are working on this week include Mathematics and Science.

In Math we will be finishing up Division for now, and move on to Geometry. Overall, I have been pleasantly surprised at how fast the students have picked up on Division, I know you have been reinforcing it at home, so keep up the great work. We will be covering many more concepts before Spring Break, including measurement, fractions, decimals and a review of multiplication, so we can do double-digit multiplication. Be ready for geometry because there will be some fun activities that can be done at home. Remember I usually always send home a Math assignment Monday - Thursday.

Science: we are studying the Solar System, but not in detail, just briefly. Most students latch onto the Solar System and try to find out more information, so be ready for some questions. Better yet, be ready to direct them to a library book about the Solar System. The biggest topic that came up last year was the fact that Pluto isn't a planet anymore. I have a couple of resources that will help the students understand the planets and be able to compare differences with Earth.

Overall, I see many improvements with the children both academically as well as socially. Their Reading Test that they took Thursday and Friday showed that many of the students have been working hard to be able to read faster, now I need to focus their attention on being better readers, and help them comprehend what they are reading. If you would like to hear how they did, you can wait until Parent Teacher Conference or send me an E-mail.

I plan on posting some pictures of the Valentine's Day - Manner's Meal, later this week, and maybe the Grandparent's pictures as well. Also please have your students bring in articles or stories about the Olympics so we can hang it on our bulletin board. I don't get the newspaper and I don't have TV reception so I am relying on their knowledge and their interests to finish decorating the bulletin board.

So here's to another great week.

Thanks,
Mr. Fisher