News from the Jungle
January 13, 2017
The homework came home today. Due to being off on Monday for MLK Jr. Day, I wanted to send the homework today and give the children extra time with their spelling words.
This week we reviewed classroom rules and procedures and worked on getting back into the regular routine of the class. We all were very tired this week!
Next week we will begin NWEA testing. Please have your child practice using the links I posted previously. Here is a link to the blog post which includes the practice sites:
https://iblog.dearbornschools.org/dimitriou/2016/12/21/nwea-map-testing-practice/
Upcoming Events
1/9 – 1/20 Pizza Kit Sales
1/16 NO SCHOOL! MLK JR. Day
1/18 Late Start – 9:40am arrival
1/20 Timeline Project due
1/20 Pizza Kit order forms and money due
1/23 Scholastic Book Order due
1/23 Leaders for Life Assembly – Send children in Detroit Lions gear/colors
1/27 ½ Day – dismissal 11:45
1/27 Pizza Kit Delivery ***Must pick up orders between 11:45 – 3:00pm
1/30 PBIS PARTY – School-wide BINGO
Agenda for the Week
Reading/Writing: We reviewed adjectives, nouns, and verbs this week. We really focused on adjectives. We colored a giant boy bundled up in winter clothes and described his hat, scarf, coat, and boots. We tried to use more than one adjective to describe each article of clothing.
We had our first spelling test this week and the children did wonderful. We practiced the spelling words all week by playing games, making books, and completing worksheets to help us read, write, and spell the words. We learned about word families and practiced our test taking skills.
Spelling words for next week will be in the homework packet.
Please continue to have your child practice writing at home. Here is what I am looking for in class:
Uppercase to start the sentence
End punctuation (. ! ?)
Finger spaces between words
Does the sentence make sense? Are the words in the correct order?
Does the picture match the words?
Did you stretch your sentence? (Is there a noun, adjective, and verb?)
Math: We took our +2 math quizzes. The children all did well with reviewing the rules about test taking and trying their best on their quizzes. Today, I sent home the +3 flashcards. We will take the +3 quiz on Friday, January 20th.
Please continue to practice counting by 1’s, 5’s, and 10’s to 100 with your child at home. Also practice counting to 30 by 2’s (2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20…..). Other activities you can practice at home are using tally marks to count objects, identifying 2D/3D shapes around the house of community, and really making sure your child has good one-to-one correspondence when counting (this means that they touch each object as they are counting and count all objects correctly).
Social Studies: We began talking about history and what timelines are and how they are used. I made a timeline of my life for the children to see as an example. A note came home on Thursday regarding the timeline project that is due on January 20th.
Housekeeping Items:
If you would like to leave boots and snow pants at school in your child’s locker, please feel free to do so! Just send me a note so that I know that they need to stay here through the week.
Please make sure reading books are placed back in the green book pouches each night and returned to school every morning.
Please make sure to record the reading that you do with your child each night on the reading log in the homework.
The easiest way to get ahold of me during the day is through my email at dimitrm@dearbornschools.org. If the children are working independently on a task, I can easily check my email and send a quick reply.
Please make sure to empty the green folders each night! It is very difficult and time consuming to locate homework or important notes when the folder is full of papers from the day before.
