New Additions to Room 3
Hope everyone had a restful holiday break!
2017 has brought some new faces to our classroom. We welcome Ali S. from Maples Elementary. He is already making himself at home as our class welcomed him with our typical River Oaks’ Rocket hospitality! That brings our class roster to 22 students. The kids love having an even number!
We are also joined by Ms. Stephanie Plecha (pronounced PLE-kah), a Teacher Intern from U of M Dearborn. We are so lucky to have her! Ms. Plecha has a strong Science background and is excited to be at River Oaks and working with your students. Currently, she is enjoying getting to know your children and our routines before leading lessons in our room. Not only do our students get to experience some different lessons, but they benefit from having TWO teachers in the room all day long! Please join me in welcoming Ms. Plecha to River Oaks!
Testing…Testing…Testing
As the marking period wraps up, we have many district required tests to administer this week and next.
Tomorrow, January 20th, we will be taking the Math NWEA. This is a standardized test required by the district to show growth. We have the opportunity to take this test on touchscreen Chromebooks. This is much easier for the students to manipulate, however, please stress to them that this test is not a game. Their scores will show up on their report cards and become part of their permanent student record. There is not a time limit on taking the test and I encourage students to take their time, re-read the questions, and on the math portion, use their whiteboard to use strategies to solve the problems if needed. Most students are taking the Primary version of the test which reads the question and answer choices to the students. I encourage them to replay it as often as they need to to help them understand the question. I had several students who earlier this week took the 57 question Reading test in 26 minutes. That is not even 30 seconds per question! And this was with me reminding them not to rush! I do not want students to stress out about this test, but they need to “Show What They Know!” by taking their time and thinking about the questions. There will be questions that they won’t know as the test program explores the boundaries of the students’ knowledge. Just encourage them to do their River Oaks Best and make sure they get a goodnight’s sleep and a hearty breakfast to fuel their brain!
We also will be finishing the District Writing Prompt to see what they know about writing. At this point in the year, they should be writing in complete sentences, using correct end marks and commas, spelling high frequency words correctly, using spelling patterns/chunks to approximate tricky words, and capitalizing beginning of sentences and names of people and places. They also should be able to organize their ideas with a topic sentence and have several detail sentences, along with a concluding sentence.
Next week, we are wrapping up our Science Unit on Water, and our Social Studies unit on Local Government.
I am also meeting one on one with students to check in on their reading levels. Please encourage your child to read and write about their reading every night.
Book Orders from Scholastic
Yesterday, I sent home book order flyers. There are MANY awesome books for our 2nd graders that are Good Fit Books. These books are also very affordable compared to Amazon and Barnes and Noble. You can either fill in the form with your student’s name, check the boxes of the book titles that you want, and send in the form and either cash or a check made payable to “Scholastic Books,” or you can go online and enter my 5 digit code located on the front of the form, and order books using a credit card. The books will be delivered to the school, and I will pass them out once they arrive. All orders must be in by next Wednesday, January 25. I will then place the order and the books should be delivered the first week of February. Happy Reading!
