Newsletter March 25 - March 29

Ok--I'm not going to promise a day for a Power School print out.  I hope you are o.k. with "you'll get it when you get it".  I take my massive pile of grading home almost nightly and then something comes up in my personal life that takes precedence.  I'm so glad though that I see continued reading every night by most of my students--keep it up!!!

Here are this week's happenings:

• Our next spelling test is tomorrow, Tuesday, March 26.  Lists were sent home last week and words are on this blog (view web version if on your phone to see the list).
• I failed to mention that we got a new student a couple of weeks ago.  Daisy came to us from Three Peaks Elementary.  My students have welcomed her with open arms. Our Zeke also came back last Friday from Enoch.  It's nice to have him back in our class!
• The PTA representative over the reading program (bookmarks) gave me a list of students and where they are in relation to getting their "Gold Eagle" at the end of the year.  I am going to send home notes about that information along with bookmarks so that if you just neglected to have your child fill one of those out you can do that.  I will send home notes to those students that are nightly readers and are close to the Gold eagle and also who are nightly readers who are not close.  Watch for those by Wednesday (yes, I'm making a promise).  I am sorry about all of the ways you are expected to account for your child's reading--I really need to ponder and figure out how to streamline this (calendars, 100-book challenge, PTA bookmarks, blue notes etc.) I will include on the note about the PTA bookmarks how many books your child has read towards our 100-book challenge.  Right now we have 10 students who have turned in 100-book lists for our challenge.  Students have until May 15 to complete this!
• Sight Word Soldiers is still every Wednesday--thanks again to Adam's mom for helping us carry out this program. 
• In math we just took our Chapter 6 test.  This test focused on counting forward from a given number, counting by tens from a given number, recognizing tens and ones in a two digit number and understanding that 10 tens = 100 and then adding more to that (103, 109 etc.).  I will send home those tests in the next couple of days.  If students miss problems on the test our math aide, Mrs. Mackey helps them make corrections and then I retest on the missing problems.  We will also have interventions or enrichments this Wednesday based on that math test.  We will start Chapter 7 tomorrow.  This is a short chapter that deals with comparing numbers (think: greater than, less than and equal to).  Students will use their knowledge of tens and ones to compare numbers and learn to use the symbols >,<, and =. 
• In reading we are continuing to learn about pronouns to replace common or proper nouns.  We just learned the 'kn' spelling for the /n/ (sound) and are in the process of writing paragraphs about animal habitats.  
• We have started our Fairy Tales unit.  We have read:  Sleeping Beauty, Rumpelstiltskin, Rapunzel and the first part of the Frog Prince.  It's fun because these stories are the original versions, not the versions that most have seen on TV or on the movie screen so we can talk about similarities and differences between these versions. My students are very engaged with this timeless tales and are learning about difference elements of fairy tales as well as learning new vocabulary.  Today we learned about "deny" vs. "admit".  

I hope you enjoy this beautiful Spring weather today.  A good dose of vitamin D is always good for the soul!

Happy Reading!!

Mrs. Armstrong