Science Fun!!!

A note from Scientist (Miss) Argall:

 

In science our first unit focuses on Earth Materials. Last week we got to pretend to be geologist and study our own “Mock Rock.” We had to use different tools to look closely at all of the properties a rock has such as: color, shape, size, texture, and weight. The students are so excited to start breaking their rocks apart to see what truly makes up a rock.  Stay tuned for more pictures of our geologists at work! J

 

What a week it has been!

Here is a look at some of the things we did this week:

Cursive! The students are SOOOO excited to be learning cursive. Our goal this year is to learn how to form all the letters correctly and be able to read cursive fluently. Even though we aren't expected to master cursive, I anticipate that cursive will end up to be easier and neater for several students than printing. So far--so good! The students have been responding well to it! Almost every night, I will send home the sheet that we worked on that day (or the previous day).  Feel free to do more practice at home with your child, as we only allot about 5-10 minutes to this skill per day!

Characters & Setting! We've been digging deep the past few weeks looking at different ways of thinking about the characters and settings in all of the books that we are reading!  While you are reading with yo ur child at night, ask them more about the characters and the setting in their books!  I hope you will be impressed at their responses! We've also been drafting stories in writers workshop--using characters and setting as our foundation for our PERSONAL NARRATIVES!

Other topics we studied this week: how illustrations support the words in a story, words that end in -ing, 4 kinds of sentences (declarative, interrogative, imperative, and exclamatory - yes, we used those words!), telling time on an analog clock (one with hands), measuring with inches and centimeters, and using tally marks and bar graphs to study data.

The coupon book fundraiser is in full swing! Westside will benefit $10 from every book sold!!! That's amazing!!! The students are very excited about the opportunity to earn money for their school and to earn prizes for their efforts. We talked about polite, safe, and strategic sales strategies and prepped the materials. Please consider purchasing one and helping your son or daughter to sell a few more. The coupons inside are FABULOUS, so I'm sure it won't be hard to "get rid" of them! **I'm gearing up to use one of the many coupons that Cherry Berry has included!

 I've been asking the students almost daily and our current classrom count is at 65--over half way to earning a pizza party! As a classroom, if we sell 100 books, we earn a pizza party. 

Hope your work week is wrapping up well. I'm looking forward to celebrating my 4 year wedding anniversary with my husband tonight! As for the weekend--I hope to have plenty of walks to the Shadowwood Park near our home and lots and lots of relaxing!

Thank you for sending your children everyday! I am enjoying getting to know each of them better!  They keep me on my toes and keep me laughing! 

 

Everyday Math & Raz-Kids

I hope you all had a restful weekend!  I was able to spend the majority of the weekend away at Fish Lake with some family.  I finished up the binding on a quilt that I have been working on for our new baby due in November!  I also enjoyed watching my husband learn how to sail in his uncle's sailboat--very interesting with the wind we had! :)

On Friday, our class spent some time in the computer lab getting aquainted with two educational websites that are available to them for curriculum support. I taped the internet login information into their home folders so they can access the websites at home as well as at school.

Everyday Mathematics:  everydaymathonline.com
Raz-Kids: raz-kids.com

During the next week, I will also be giving each of the students access to Book Adventure.  Hundreds of books in our school library have reading levels and quizzes aligned with them.  Each of the students can choose to check those books out to help improve their independent reading comprehension.  After a student finishes reading a "BA" book, they can log-in and take a quiz to earn points!  You can find this website @ bookadventure.com

Please e-mail or call if you have questions about any of these things!