Terrific Tuesday!

I trust that everyone had a wonderful three day weekend full of relaxation and fun. The children did return ready to work.

Thank you for all the sweet birthday wishes last Wednesday. If you go to the parent blog, you can view some pictures and catch up with the room moms and possible volunteer opportunities.

This week we will continue with several skills and begin new skills and activities. I know it is a shorter week, but they do have a spelling list (Silent -e) and will have a test on Friday. Tonight for homework they are to write the words in alphabetical order on the sheet that I provided in class today and practice writing the two rules. Again, this Friday the dictation will be for the children to write the rules of the words.

We will begin a new vocabulary lesson in our Wordly Wise workbook. The words include: attract, attractive, attraction, crew, dangle, drift, event, launch, opposite,reverse, signal, and steer. We will study the definitions as we read the story, Up, Up, and Away. The children will read about riding in a hot air balloon in the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta.

This week we will try to finish practicing our lower and upper case alphabet in manuscript.

Our character trait for the week is respect. I will read a couple of stories that demonstrate respect not only between child and adult but between each other as they work together in small groups or with a buddy.

I will be sending home the first Social Studies project tomorrow on Landforms. I had hoped to get that out today, but ran short of time. I want to make sure that the children understand the objective and expectation before they begin. If you have any questions once you have had a chance to review, please don't hesitate to email me.

We will be completing our first math unit. The goal is to be prepared to test this unit by next Tuesday. Tonight they have page 16 in the workbook.

Please continue the Dance Mat practice. I would like the children to get through Stage 7 by Friday. There will some available time in class, but practicing at home is truly a more focused environment.

We are putting our Scientific Method to practice this week. We are observing potatoes, and making educated guesses about raisins in cereal and seeds in apples. I have challenged the children to learn the 9 categories that we have outlined in our science journal.The categories that we have learned are as follows: Observations, Questions, Research, Hypothesis, Plan and Experiment, Conduct the Experiment, Record the Data, Analyze the Data, Form a Conclusion.

As you have already witnessed, I will send home challenges from time to time My request is that they at least attempt to solve some if not all the challenges. Tomorrow I am sending home a September challenge that your child can choose to do one, two or all of the questions. They have the month of September to complete the questions. But it is always helpful not to wait to the last day of the month. If your child does not wish to complete this challenge, then I hope that they will choose another challenge along the way. I did send them home with some Brain Teasers on Friday.

This week in Reading, we will focus on the setting and mood of the characters and how we can interpret or infer the mood of a character by the words and descriptions the author uses as well as the actions of that character.

We had our first "formal" writers workshop today. We began evaluating our "Memories close out heart" and choosing the one that we wanted to use as our topic for our first Personal Narrative. We worked on different ways to begin the Personal Narrative and then ended the writing time listening to another authors advice on telling ones Life Story. Hopefully your child would be able to tell you at least one "lie" or misconception when writing ones life story. You do NOT have to be a celebrity, do amazing feats, wait until your old and gray, or think that no one will read it, so what's the point! As I told the children when they are writing, that their most important audience is themselves, but not to forget their classmates and their teacher. By beginning with Personal Narratives, they are telling stories that they can hold on to and perhaps even share with their own children someday. We will spend quite a bit of time with this particular unit of writing. The goal is to publish at least two pieces. There will come a time for us to share with you on a Celebration Day where everyone is proud to share their accomplishment of completing the writing process but also their memories.

Graded papers will be coming home this week on Friday. Remember, sign the envelope and return the following Monday, but you keep the papers.