Newsletter March 18 - April 1

I hope that you all had a nice Easter weekend.  It seems that a storm is blowing in.  That's Utah weather at it's finest!  Thanks to those that sent candy-filled Easter eggs.  We had a great time finding 17 eggs each!  Thanks also to Jayleigh and Jaiger's mom for helping to transport all of the eggs and hiding them at the park for us!  Today begins our fourth quarter of school--we have 9 more weeks and 9 more weeks of great academic growth!

Here are this week's happenings:

• Tonight is the PTA sponsored Talent Show.  The First grade portion starts right at 6:00.  I didn't have anyone from our class sign-up to participate (that I know of), but you are welcome to come and watch and check out the art display.
• On Friday, the PTA is sponsoring a "Pops and Pancakes" event.  Bring a "Pop" (dad, grandpa, uncle etc) and enjoy a free pancake breakfast.  It begins at 7:45am and ends at 8:30am. Students need to have a "pop" to attend and remember that teachers are not at the school until 8:20.  
• Today we began Unit 6 in our Skills reading program.  We discussed three different spellings for the /s/ sound (s, ss, and c).  We also began learning about narrative writing.  We learned that to be a "good" narrative that author must include information about "who, what, when, where and why?"  Spelling words came home today and the test will be Friday, April 1.  Notice that the final consonants on the root words are doubled when the ending is added (i.e. swim=swimming). 
• We are a day behind on our math schedule.  Today we completed Lesson 9.5.  Tomorrow we will start with time.  I will move the test to April 6 with the homework packet due on April 5.
• The March PTA calendar is due this Friday, April 1.  I will send home the Kite for Flight calendars too on Wednesday.
• Since we just completed quarter 3, I will send home a quarter 3 grade printout by this Thursday.  Please watch for that, and let me know if you see any discrepancies.  
• Some students now are on take-home levels that have longer books.  I only want to have your child read for 15 minutes each school night so if rereading their take-home book requires longer than 15 minutes just count it as rereading it 3 times.  Please continue to reread the books 3 times if it fits into that 15 minute time-frame.  It's so valuable for fluency (speed, accuracy, rate) to reread text!!! I just know that kids need "free time " and don't want to overwhelm you or your child with homework, but also want to stress the importance of continuing to practice reading at home. 

Have a great week and Happy Reading!