Newsletter January 28 - February 1

Today I sent home SEP notices.  Please look at those and send the bottom portion of the sheet back stating whether you can attend the day and time I scheduled for you.  I used the same schedule as our Fall conferences.  If you can't make the time please write a better day and time and I will try and accomodate you. You can also e-mail me and we can arrange another day and/or time. 

Remember that school will dismiss everyday at 2:30 next week including Wednesday!

Here are this week's happenings:

• New spelling words will come home tomorrow.  The test will be next Tuesday, February 5. 
• I will give you information about the 100-book challenge at your SEP conference.  I haven't been able to get the information together yet.  
• Remember the red PTA bookmark for a free movie ticket is due on February 8 for the awards on Valentine's Day.
• Speaking of Valentine's Day we will have a little "party" in our classroom that day.  We will decorate cookies and hand out Valentine cards.  I like to decorate Valentine's Day bags in class (a place for students to keep their cards).  I buy them for $1.00 (ask for you to help cover the cost) and then we all help by donating items to decorate them.  I will send home a note about this and a list of those in our classroom for cards next Monday.
• We are moving right along in our learning.  Tomorrow we will start a new unit in reading where we will learn about alternate spellings for many consonant sounds (ex. /j/ can be spelling 'j', 'g', and 'ge').  We will also learn about adding endings to words (ex. stop becomes stopping).  We will start a new book that will highlight these "new spellings" called Kate's Book.  It follows a girl named Kate who has various adventures during her summer vacation and eventually writes a book about them.
• In math, we are hitting hard related facts.  I think most of my students understand and can see the pattern for related facts (2 + 3 = 5, 3 + 2 = 5, 5 - 2 = 3 and 5 - 3 = 2), but not all really understand that relationship so we are using a lot of visual aides and manipulatives (hands on stuff)  so students can "see" this.  This week we will have interventions on Wednesday and students will either have enrichment activities with related facts or reteaching activities with related facts based on a recent assessment of this concept. 
• If you haven't signed up for the REMIND app please do so by the end of the month.  Some of you may not be able to receive texts without signing up for the app.  It's still free but messages will go through the app rather than directly to your text messages. 

Don't forget to look for your child's SEP notice and sign it.

Happy Reading!

Mrs. Armstrong