Author: Melissa Dimitriou

RED FOLDERS —  Moving forward, red folders will only come home if your child flipped their card during that week. If you do not receive a red folder on Friday, that means your child did not flip their card during the week.

Please put your child on readingeggs.com at home and have them do a couple of lessons each night.  This can count on the reading log in the homework for some of the nightly reading!

Upcoming Events

2/6 – 2/9 Valentine Gram Sale

2/10 Family Valentine’s Dance (in gym)

2/14 Valentine’s Day Party

2/15 Late Start – 9:45am

2/15 Scholastic Book Order Due

2/17 Exotic Zoo Assembly

2/17 Haigh School Store open during lunch hours

2/17 100^th day of school – (more information coming soon)

2/20 – 2/24 Mid-Winter Break

2/28 PBIS PARTY – Beach Fun

Agenda for the Week

Reading/Writing: We engaged in another R.A.N strategy this week. The R.A.N strategy is reading and analyzing non-fiction text. We talked about what we already knew about hibernation and then we read stories about hibernation and confirmed the facts we knew and discussed knew facts we learned. Next, the children were split into groups to do research on a specific animal and how that animal hibernates. The children practiced informational writing by including facts from the text in their writing. We also made crafts to go along with our research writing. We researched the hibernation habits of bears, groundhogs, bats, and ladybugs.

Spelling words for next week will be in the homework packet coming home on Monday.

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 +5 math quiz. Today, I sent home the +6 flashcards. We will take the +6 quiz on Friday, February 10th.

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 will begin our geography unit and take a few months to learn about the world around us, our community, maps, and globes.

We watched Phill come out of his hole and see his shadow for Groundhog’s Day. We also completed several activities for Groundhog’s Day.

Science:  We began learning about the basic needs of living things. This unit will take a few months to complete. While we are learning about the needs of living things, we will research hibernation and migration as an extra project and complete a R.A.N strategy where we pull the evidence (facts) right from the text and practice informational writing with the information we learn. We started our R.A.N strategy about hibernation and learned about what different animals do to prepare for the long winter.

Housekeeping Items:

Children need a snack each day! Please do not send candy as a snack. The children need a healthy snack each day such as fruit, crackers, cheese, yogurt, granola bars, etc.  As a reminder, no juice is allowed in class for snack.

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.

Dear Families,

We will have a Valentine’s Day party on Valentine’s Day. We will run this party just like all the rest of the parties. We will have six centers of crafts and games for the children to rotate through. If you would like to come in and help with our Valentine party, please send me and email at dimitrm@dearbornschools.org. If you have not helped with a party before and would like to, you will have priority for this party. First, I will choose volunteers that have not had a chance to come into the classroom previous to this party. Then I will choose the rest of the volunteers on a first come basis. This means, I will take volunteers in the order that I receive emails of interest.

We also will have time in the day to pass out Valentine cards. This is not mandatory. You may choose if you would like your child to pass out cards. If you choose to pass out Valentine cards, here are a few things to know:

1. We have 25 students in our class. Please make sure you have a Valentine card for each student.
2. Please only write your child’s name on the card. It is too hard for them to try and read each child’s name and then it doubles the amount of time it takes to pass out the cards. Leave blank the “To:____________” and have your child write their name in the “From: _____________” spot.

If you have any questions, I will be happy to help!

No red folders today due to a busy week of assessments and a full and busy half day! Parents please speak with your children about following the rules and knowing when to chit chat with friends. The whole class has been very talkative and having trouble getting their work done in a timely manner.

This week we finished NWEA testing. The children did well and I cannot wait until they take the test again in the spring in order to see how much more they will grow!

It has been a crazy couple of weeks with all of the assessments that we have been trying to complete. The children are working hard to show their growth and making me proud! The children’s reading has improved so much from the last time I assessed their reading levels back in November. I truly believe that readingeggs.com is a valuable resource that is helping to contribute to all the growth I am seeing!

Please put your child on readingeggs.com at home and have them do a couple of lessons each night.  This can count on the reading log in the homework for some of the nightly reading!

Mathseeds has been a great tool and the children have really loved working with this program. We are only signed up on a free trial and unfortunately that trial is coming to an end! Today is the last day for Mathseeds. If you loved Mathseeds, send me an email with what you liked about it, how you think it helped your child improve and in what they improved, and if your child liked using this program. I will compile all of the feedback and pass it on to Mr. Short!

Upcoming Events

1/30 PBIS PARTY – School-wide BINGO

Agenda for the Week

Reading/Writing: We wrote about how to build a snowman and used transition words first, next, then, and last to list the steps. We are still working on stretching our sentences to include more details such as describing the noun (using adjectives), telling what the noun is doing (verb), telling where all of it is taking place (setting), and telling the reason why (using the word ‘because’).

Spelling words for next week will be in the homework packet coming home on Monday.

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 +4 math quizzes. Today, I sent home the +5 flashcards. We will take the +5 quiz on Friday, February 3rd.

We began working on missing addend. Missing addend or Missing Part is where they children have one part of the equation and know how many they have all together, but do not know the other part or addend.  For example: 2 + __ = 10. We used number lines and ten frames to help us find the answer. We also used the strategy of counting on.  We also made up several stories which helped us to understand how to find the missing part.

Here is an example: The class as ten (10) balloons. Some of the balloons are red and some are green. Three (3) of the balloons are red. How many balloons are green?  The equation we know is 3 + __ = 10. Then the children would use the number line, ten frame, or the counting on strategy to find the missing part to the equation. Some of the children who understand subtraction are learning how to flip the equation in order to find the missing part by saying 10 – 3 = ___.

Here is the video we watched in class:

Social Studies:  Thank you for helping your child complete their timeline project. It was so fun to see all the children as babies!

We will begin our geography unit and take a few months to learn about the world around us, our community, maps, and globes.

Science:  We are going to begin learning about the basic needs of living things. This unit will take a few months to complete. While we are learning about the needs of living things, we will research hibernation and migration as an extra project and complete a R.A.N strategy where we pull the evidence (facts) right from the text and practice informational writing with the information we learn.

Housekeeping Items:

Children need a snack each day! Please do not send candy as a snack. The children need a healthy snack each day such as fruit, crackers, cheese, yogurt, granola bars, etc.  As a reminder, no juice is allowed in class for snack.

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.

Families,

The end of the month is here, and that means it is time for our January PBIS celebration! On Monday, January 30th, if your child has maintained positive behavior for the entire month, they will participate in Haigh’s School-Wide Bingo game! The game will be played over the loudspeaker throughout the building so everyone will play together at the same time. This is a super fun event and a great way to recognize the positive behavior throughout our school.

Thanks for your continued support,
Haigh’s PBIS Committee

This week we began NWEA testing. We will continue with this testing next week as well.  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

1/23 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. This week we focused more on nouns and verbs. We are working on stretching our sentences to include more details (who is the story/sentence about, where are they, what do they look like, what are they doing, etc).

Spelling words for next week will be in the homework packet coming home on Monday.

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 +3 math quizzes. Today, I sent home the +3 flashcards. We will take the +4 quiz on Friday, January 27th.

We continue to learn about addition. We have been practicing using a number line to add numbers together. We also have been using a strategy called “counting on” where the child imagines the larger number in their head and displays the smaller number on their hands by putting up that number of fingers. Then they touch their head and say the larger number, then count up from there on their fingers to find the total.

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 continued talking about history and what timelines are and how they are used. We shared our timeline projects with each other and the children enjoyed talking about their past.

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.

We began NWEA MAP testing today. This means that I could not pull new books for the children.

In addition to NWEA MAP testing, I have been assessing reading levels with the DRA test and administering several small DRA task analysis assessments. We also have a district writing prompt due this week!

Lots and Lots of assessing going on right now.

Great news is that the children are showing excellent growth so far! I will be adjusting their green book pouch books to reflect their assessed reading levels! I am aiming to have green book pouches sent home tomorrow with new books!

Thank you for your patience as we work through this month of assessments.

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 20^th.

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.

We completed our first spelling test today. The children did excellent with their test taking skills and every child in the class received 100% on their test!

Thank you so much for helping support their learning at home and helping them prepare for this test!

We are going to see Pete the Cat at the Michigan Theater in Ann Arbor on March 14, 2017. The permission slip for this field trip with a note came home today. The permission slip with the money ($13.00 – exact cash) is due back to school on January 19th.

Children will need a brown bag lunch the day of the field trip.

Please see the note coming home today for more details.

It is time for our students to create a timeline using events from their own lives! This is a wonderful project that allows the students to visually experience their own past and enjoy talking about the past five or six years with you at home!

Please be creative and include pictures, drawings, and short explanations of different times in your child’s past. The project should be done chronologically starting with birth and showing something from each year of their lives. Some examples of events that will show their growth and development are as follows: holiday pictures, birthday pictures, sport pictures, first day of school, etc. It is best if your project is displayed horizontally.

Have fun and enjoy taking a walk down memory lane with this wonderful Social Studies project!

Please return this completed project to school by January 20^th.