Dear Parents,
It’s been a busy couple of weeks here in room 34! Students are doing great learning new procedures and rules. Class dojo is a great way to see how your child is doing throughout the day. Let me know if you are not logged in to Class Dojo and I can get you another form so you can sign in to the program.
Below is a summary of things we’ve been working on:
NWEA testing:
2nd grade completed reading and math in September.
3rd grade completed reading, math, language, and science in September.
I can go over the results with you at your child’s conference time in November.
I am sitting down with each student to develop academic goals based on their score from this test.
Science:
2nd graders have been working on properties and helped to sort objects based on their properties.
3rd graders have been working on forces and explored that concept in stations with the other third grade class.
Social Studies:
2nd graders are learning about their community while 3rd graders are studying Michigan. We’ve been using maps to explore Michigan’s location as well as learning about other important facts about Michigan.
Reading and Writing:
We’ve been learning about fables. Ask your child the characteristics of a fable: characters, setting, problem, flaw in one of the characters, trickery (sometimes), and a moral or lesson to be learned.
We are almost done with our first fable that we wrote together.
Students also write independently in their “Work on Writing” notebook, where they have choice over what they can write about.
During reading mini lessons, we have been learning comprehension strategies such as back up and reread, check for understanding, and monitor and fix up.
Check for understanding on every couple of pages helps students to monitor their understanding about characters, setting, problem, solution, details about characters, etc.
Reading Homework:
Which leads us into the topic of Reading Homework. Thank you for setting aside time to read for 20 minutes each night. Also, thank you for recording what your child is reading, comments about it, and the time they read on the flashcard in the book bag.
It is fine to keep the bag home if your child is reading a chapter book and it takes them a few days to read it.
Students should have good fit books in these bags. Good fit simply means that they are able to read most of the words and understand what they are reading.
Math Homework:
There should either be a math home link or journal that comes home each night for practice.
Spelling Homework:
Spelling homework is simply practicing the words any way you see fit. My daughter and I practice by: she studies the words and then I give her a practice test say on Wednesday or Thursday. She then practices the words that were tricky for her.
Students write these spelling words in their planner each Monday (2nd grade on a piece of paper).
This upcoming week:
Book fair: Tuesday at 10:00 a.m.
Don’t forget movie night tonight.
Sadly, I am home today with strep throat so I won’t be able to come:(
Have a great weekend!
Sincerely,
Gina Parana