Dear Parents,

Time sure is passing quickly! This week we have a half day on Friday, January 29th. School dismissal time is 11:45 that day.

This week:

Spelling: scroll, throw, shrank, spring, sprain, scream, thread, shrimp, sprint, throat. (These words can be the challenge for 2nd grade if they want to try them).

2nd grade: grow, low, toe, goes, soap, crow, mow, doe, foam, toast

REading/Daily 5/:
This week we will learn more about making inferences. Inferencing is when readers use their background knowledge and the pictures, diagrams, to help them to comprehend the text. We will then use our inferences to talk about the author’s point of view.

Writer’s Workshop: We are finishing up our Realistic Fiction stories. These types of stories have characters that behave like real people, settings that could be real places, problems and solutions that could be believable to happen in real life, and a theme or lesson to be learned from the story.

Social STudies: Continuation about core democratic values and the government of Michigan.

Science: We will begin our unit on plants and other living things.

Math: 3rd grade continues to practice multiplication and division while 2nd grade works on polygons, quadrangles, and other geometric ideas.
In addition to the Home Links, I will be sending home a math fluency paper as well. Both grades should practice these facts and try to get faster and faster at recalling them.
Moby max is a great site to practice fluency of math facts and other math practice. Your child knows how to get on and gives them extra practice when they practice at home:)

Snacks: Fruits, vegetables, cheese or yogurt are recommended. Please no chips, cookies, or treats for a snack. Thank you!

I always love talking with parents but I please ask that you contact me before or after school. Calls during the day interrupt the flow of teaching and learning. Thank you for understanding:)

As always, feel free to contact me with any questions or concerns.

Thank you and have a great week!

Sincerely,
Gina Parana

News for the Week of January 19th, 2016

Monday: January 19, 2016: No School: Martin Luther King Jr.’s Birthday:)

Wednesday: January 20th, Late Start: School starts at 9:40.

Spelling: drum, frying price, train, track, dream, frame, printing, traps, trim.

Daily 5/Science/Social Studies:
This week we will incorporate the content areas into our reading and use the strategy “Use main idea and details.” We will use our study of government (from Social Studies) and the concepts we’ve learned so far in Science to help strengthen informational strategies.
We will also use “inferring” in narrative text reading. Inferring is when you use your background knowledge to help understand what you are reading about characters, their actions, their motivations, etc.
The language skills we are focusing on are quotation mark usage and the meanings of sentence types: declarative, explanatory, and questions.

Writing:
We will be continuing on with our realistic fiction stories. Ask your child what realistic fiction means: characters behave like real people, settings can be like real places, and the other events could be events that could happen.
Conventions: Working on making sure we use the quotations in our dialogue tags, punctuation, and capitalization.
Word Choice: Use sensory details, adjectives, etc. in our writing.

NWEA testing:
Tuesday, 3rd graders will take their Science portion.
Thursday, 3rd graders will take the Language portion.

As always, have a great week!

Sincerely,
Gina Parana

Dear Parents,

This upcoming week there will be lots to learn and practice!

Spelling: grapes, bring, cried, grow, brain, crow, grace, gray, grain, cross, crowd, brake.

Reading and Writing:
Language: Quotation marks: while reading, practice studying quotations, what they mean, how authors use the punctuation marks.
Grammar: Practice writing the spelling words in sentences focusing on correct capitalization and punctuation.
Comprehension: Character traits: how characters behave and inferring. We can use what the author says about a character to guess how that character may be feeling.
Writing: We are then using these ideas about characters, to use the descriptive language we hear from the reading and incorporating it into our writing as we write realistic fiction stories about winter.

Math: 3rd graders are spending the week strengthening multiplication and division fluency and problem solving.
2nd grade is focusing on addition and subtraction fluency along with problem solving.

Science: We will be finishing our sound and light unit.

Social Studies: Our state government.

NWEA testing: 2nd and 3rd graders will be taking the NWEA test this week for Reading and Math. 3rd graders will have an additional test on Language skills and Science.
Our class will go to the lab on Wednesday and Friday. Please make sure that your child gets a good night’s sleep this week and that they eat a good, hearty breakfast as well:)
Students do not need to feel nervous. The test is a measure of their learning and helps educators to know how well they are progressing and what skills they will need next.
Just as they do not need to feel nervous, we all stress the importance of taking their time on this test.

Looking Ahead: Late Start: Wednesday, January 20th.

As always please contact me through the blog or class dojo if you have any questions:)

Have a great week!

Sincerely,
Gina Parana

Welcome back to school and Happy New Year!  I hope everyone had a wonderful break with their families.

This week’s activities include:

Spelling: vcv syllable patterns:
Music, basic, honor, tiger, olive, cabin, behind, rewind, alive

Daily 5/REading:
REad for 20 minutes each night and log minutes on the paper in the book bag.
This week we will focus on a few things:
1. What is realistic fiction and how does it compare to other types of fiction.
2. Characters in realistic fiction: What are the characters like and how do they change throughout the story.
3. We will take a look at multiple meaning words.
Practice telling about characters as you read at home!

Writing:
Writing realistic fiction stories about how our snowman came to life! Look for these in a couple of weeks out in the hall!

Science: Light and sound.

Social Studies: Branches of government.

Math: Continue to practice fluency skills and problem solving skills.

Have a great week!

I can’t believe this is our last week in school before our 2 week break!

Happenings in Room 34:

Wednesday, December 16th:   Late Start  All School Sing A Long at 2:30.

Friday, December 18th:  Classroom Winter/Holiday Party from about 1:45-2:45.  Could volunteers arrive at 1:30?

Spelling:  chill, sheep, think, while, chase, chest, shape, thing, wheat, white

Social Studies:  3rd graders will be finishing up the History of Michigan and taking our test Monday in the computer lab.

Science:  2nd:  Students are studying landforms and matter.

3rd:  Students are studying light and sound.

Writer’s Workshop:  We are writing about some very important people in our life for our unit of narrative writing.  We are concentrating on descriptive words, sequence words, and giving examples.  Students are doing a great job!

Daily 5/Reading:  We are concentrating on using context clues to help us figure out what unknown words mean.  We are learning that sometimes the author will define the word for you and sometimes you have to use the surrounding text to help  you figure out the meaning of the word.

We are learning about prefixes, suffixes, and latin root words too.

Math:  3rd graders are working on muliplication and division facts while 2nd graders are working on double digit addition strategies:)

Have a great week!

Dear Parents,

Time sure is passing quickly!

This week we will many fun things planned!

Tuesday, December 8th at 9:45 we will preview Santa’s Workshop. There will be gifts in there that kids can buy for family members, etc. This time gives students a chance to preview items they might want to buy the next day.

Wednesday, December 9th at 10:30 we will then go back to shop at Santa’s Workshop. This will be the day to send money in with your child to buy the things they had on their wish list if you choose.

New Spelling Words: meat, queen, beet, mean, seat, seen, feet, bean, pony, baby

Math: Exploring multiplication/division for third grade.
Exploring number stories for 2nd grade.

Social Studies: 2nd graders reviewed for their online quiz on “Where is my community and what is it like there?” Scores are online and I will then post them to the gradebook for you to see later this week or next week.
3rd graders will also take their test on the “History of Michigan”. We will be reviewing this week.

Science: 3rd graders continue to learn about light while 2nd graders explore the three states of matter. 2nd grade will then begin to learn about landforms.

Daily 5/Reading: This week we learn how to figure out what unknown words mean based on the root word that we know. We will use this as our “Expand vocabulary” strategy. We will also learn how to use context clues when reading words we don’t know (their meaning).

Writing: We are working on narrative writing, using dialogue in narrative writing, organization, sentence fluency, word choice, and capitalization:)

Have a great week!

Sincerely,
Gina Parana

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!
Now, back to learning in Room 34!

This week:

Friday, December 4th: Math Morning! Spend the morning with your child exploring Math Workshop and explore how our school teaches a math lesson. Rotate from Math with Technology, Math using paper and pencil, math games, and math reflection. Come and join us!

Spelling: “ow” chunk: grow, low, toe, goes, soap, crow, mow, doe, toast

Math: 3rd Grade: Multiplication practice, problem solving, and computation practice.
2nd grade: Addition/subtraction practice, problem solving, and computation practice.

Science: Exploring light and sound.

Social Studies: Continue on with the history of Michigan. We will continue on from our studies of the first people to the first settlements and begin learning about the conflicts between the French and Indians.

Reading/Daily 5: Grammar: possessive nouns
Foundations: 2 vowels together
Comprehension: Cause/effect in fiction and nonfiction texts.

Writing: Begin realistic fiction writing: “How my snowman came to life”. We will brainstorm adjectives pertaining to snow, snowmen, etc.
Then we will explore realistic fiction text to examine how writers use setting, characters, problems, 3 events that lead to a solution, and the solution. Exploration of text will help us to write our own realistic fiction story:)

Spelling review this week: er words: brother, purple, sister, teacher, mother, father, grandmother, grandfather, etc.

Daily 5: Main idea and details using nonfiction text.

Writer’s Workshop: Informational writing: “How to”. Ask your child about their how to informational writing. Many are getting perfect scores because they included an introduction, transition words, steps teaching someone to do something, interesting words, and a conclusion.

Science: Light and sound. Ask your child about how light moves.

Social Studies: History of Michigan, the first settlements, and the first settlers.

No School: Wednesday, November 25th. Return the following Monday: Thanksgiving Recess.
Spelling Test: Tuesday morning.

Welcome to a new week!

This week:

Spelling: sh, ch, and th words: three, shin, chin,

Reading: We will learn about cause and effect relationships and how understanding those 2 components of the reading process can help you understand what you are reading. The cause is why something happens and the effect is what happens. Practice that strategy this week as you are reading at home.
Our grammar lessons will focus on prefixes and suffixes.

Writing: Great job on the report about bats. They are up on our hallway bulletin board so you can view them at conference time. Now, we are learning all about the components of an opinion piece of writing. Those components include an introduction, opinion statement, reasons with examples, and a conclusion. Our topic was “Would you rather watch tv or play video games?” We also focused on word choice and took time to revise with a partner so that our partner could give us advice about better words to use as well as editing capitalization and punctuation!

Science: 2nd graders will begin to learn about matter.
3rd graders will learn about light and sound.

Social Studies: We continue to learn about the history of Michigan.

Response to Bullying: We have been listening to stories about bullying and holding discussions about what bullying is and is not. It’s great to have these conversations about this topic at home. Our class dojo is very supportive of this topic. You can look for your child getting “Helping others”, “Teamwork”, as a way to see how your child works and treats others. On the flip side, if a child gets a disrespectful dojo, that could mean that were not being nice to another student or not listening to a teacher.

Report Cards: Report cards will be given out at conferences. Thank you for signing up for conferences! I will send reminders home this week.

Have a great week and as always, feel free to contact me with any questions or concerns.

Sincerely,
Gina Parana

Dear Parents,
I hope everyone enjoyed the Fall Festival and Halloween. We had a great time at our Halloween party. Thank you to all of the volunteers for everything!

This week:

Tuesday, November 3, No School.
Wednesday, November 4, Informational Published Copy about bats is due.
What we are looking for in the report:
The report:
Has an introduction with about 3-5 sentences.
The report has facts about bats under correct headings (Organization).
The report has a conclusion.
The report has proper punctuation and capitalization.
The report has pictures when needed.
Friday, November 6, 1/2 Day: Teacher Duty Day. Dismissal time 11:45.

Language Arts this week:
We will be studying cause and effect relationships in the text and learn how understanding those types of relationships help with reading comprehension.
Grammar: Review syllables, adverbs, and begin prefixes.
Writing: Begin opinion writing later in the week.

Math:
Home Links each night and journal pages if students don’t finish:)
We will also work on building math fluency through games with partners and games on the computer.
Social STudies:
Students took their test on the Geography of Michigan a couple of weeks ago and did very well. Now we will begin learning about the History of Michigan.

Science:
Our forces unit has ended and we will begin to learn about light and sound.

Spelling: Review words this week and practice grammar lessons in the Word Work station.

Have a great week!

Sincerely,
Gina Parana