Newsletter November 30 - December 4

 Welcome back from your Thanksgiving holiday--I hope that you and your families are all well.  We have three full weeks of school until our Christmas holiday--these three weeks will be full of learning and Christmas activities.

Here are this week's happenings:

• I have decided to change the way I have you report your child's nightly reading.  If you recall I have been working on my Master's thesis this semester (I just turned it in yesterday!!).  From that study I found a positive correlation between rereading books at home on your child's reading fluency.  I also learned through the surveys that there are too many places to report your child's reading--the book in the bag sheet, PTA bookmarks and my reading calendar.  I am going to cut that back for you by just having you fill out the sheet in the take home books bag.  When your child bumps up a level then I will give them a certificate, treat, and pizza coupon.  I will no longer send home monthly reading calendars in addition to the take home books reporting sheet.  Since I already sent home the November calendar that will be due by this Friday, December 4 for a certificate, treat and pizza coupon.  The students that have already bumped up a level will also get that so some students may be receiving two this month :). I hope that helps you with the reporting not occurring in three different places.  I still would hope that you would read with your child every school night even though we do not have take home books 5 times a week this year.
• If you haven't signed up for East Elementary's REMIND please do that now--I do not send home announcements that get sent home that way.  One was just sent home today.  Sign up by texting @cedareas to the number 81010. 
• In math this week we are finishing up our unit on two-dimensional shapes.  Today we learned about halves and tomorrow we will learn about fourths/quarters.  On Wednesday we will start our chapter on three-dimensional shapes.  We will learn about attributes of three-dimensional shapes and combine them to create different shapes as well as take them apart.
• In reading we have learned both of the sounds and spellings for 'oo' (soon and book).  Today we learned about the 'ou' sound.  We read a Fable called The Two Mules.  Tomorrow we will read the fable the Dog and the Mule.  This month we will learn a lot about reindeer and write factual sentences about them.  I hope you saw your child's turkey art and sentences that came home today.  We are getting so much better at writing sentences.  Rather than students saying "Mrs. Armstrong how do you spell this...." I hear them sounding out the words as they spell them.  
• Next week students will have their middle of the year reading test (DIBELS).  We will not have reading groups next week due to this.  I will let you know those results as soon as I can.  We use the data from this test to form our small reading groups.  
• Also in reading we are reading different versions of famous stories.  We first read Cinderella and told read the version from Egypt The Girl and the Red Slippers.  We talked about story elements (characters, setting, and plot) from each of those stories and compared and contrasted the two stories using a Venn diagram.  
• We had a nice surprise from "Mr. Russ" across the street last Tuesday.  I took the notes that we wrote him on Monday and on Tuesday he had some yummy cookies delivered to our classroom from the Palette bakery.  We even shared some with Mrs. Carter's class.  I think this experience has been a good one for my students.  Showing someone you are thinking about them and being kind is a life lesson we all need especially at this time of the year. 

Happy almost December and Happy Reading,

Mrs. Armstrong

Newsletter November 16 - November 20

It's the last full week before Thanksgiving!  I am so grateful for this class and that we are still in school face to face!  I have noticed over the last couple of weeks some great academic growth with my kiddos.  Remember that next week we only have school on Monday and Tuesday.  Last week we finished up our watercolor turkeys and wrote factual sentences about turkeys.  This is one area where I have really noticed improvements (sentence writing).  It didn't hurt that they were very interested in learning about turkeys.  Ask them some questions about turkeys--like do all turkeys make the "gobble gobble" sound?  

Here's are this week's happenings:

• Today I sent home a Scholastic book order (both November and December).  I will extend the date written on the note until this Friday, November 20.  If you would like to order some books for Christmas gifts (they make excellent gifts) I would be happy to "hide" them for you.  Just let me know.  Using the online code and ordering online is the best way to order.  
• This week we started a new unit in math about 2-dimensional shapes.  It's a nice change from our unit on addition.  Today we learned about sorting shapes by attribute and that shapes can be open or closed, curved or have straight sides.  We also learned that the math word for corner is "vertex" or plural "vertices".  In this unit we will learn new shapes such as hexagon and trapezoid.  We will combine and "take apart" two dimensional shapes along with learning about equal and unequal parts, halves, and fourths. 
• Today we read a story called The Two Dogs and are continuing our work on vowel combinations.  Especially the 'oo' (like soon) sound and spelling.  We will continue to work on writing multiple sentences on a given topic.  This week we will write sentences about Pilgrims to go along with a Pilgrim art project.  We will continue to learn about Ancient Egypt.  Today we learned about the Great Pyramid and later this week we will learn about the Sphinx. 
• Take home books were sent home today.  Remember that they are due each Thursday.  If you did not get them turned in on Thursday then your child will not have new books today.  Library books are also due on Thursday! The November reading calendar will be due December 1 the Tuesday after we return from Thanksgiving break. 

Have a nice Monday and Happy Reading!

Mrs. Armstrong

Newsletter November 9 - November 13

 This will be short and sweet today--to be honest it's 5:00 and I need to get home and get the finishing touches on a chapter of my master's thesis tonight. 

Here are few things of interest:

• Masks!  You might have heard the governor's new statewide mask mandate.  We've always done that in school so there are not any changes here.  I did have three students forget to bring a mask today--my box is now empty, but thanks to a generous parent I have another box for days like today.  Please remember to send your child with a mask everyday and please talk to them about the importance of wearing one.
• This week we are finishing up our chapter of addition strategies.  We have been working on adding three numbers and tomorrow we will work on word problems using 3 addends.  We will then review all of the concepts we have learned and then test on Friday.  We will then move to concepts such as telling time to the hour and half hour, measurement, graphs, geometry (three-dimensional and two dimensional shapes) during the "holiday" months of November and December.
• In reading we are also finishing up unit 2 this week.  We will test tomorrow on long vowel patterns.  Students will spell and read words with long vowels (words such as rake, hide etc.).  We have nouns down--and even can tell the difference between a common and proper noun.  In writing we have been writing in our journals almost daily and this month we will write about turkeys (factual sentences) and also about what we are thankful for.  I try to combine writing with some sort of art so we'll make pilgrims, and paint turkeys over the next couple of weeks.  
• We finished our unit on the human body after learning about the food pyramid and the 5 keys for a healthy body.  We are now going back to our unit on ancient world civilizations and especially concentrating on Ancient Egypt--we have learned about the importance of the Nile river and have learned about and practiced writing in hieroglyphs.  Next we will learn about the Great Pyramid and the Sphinx and King Tut along with a female Pharaoh Hatshepsut.  
• Tomorrow we will welcome another new student, Sofia.  That will bring our class total to 17.  
• Remember to keep reading your take-home books and return them on Thursday.  Mark your minutes on the November reading calendar.  
• Today we took our extra recess (it was extra fun in the snow) as a reward for the school meeting the PTA fundraiser goal.  Thanks for sending warm clothes today--keep that in mind every time the weather changes.  I actually have a boys size 7/8 coat that was donated last year and then the schools closed and..... well...  if any of you are in need of a coat please sent me a private message and I will send it home with your son.  It's a very nice brand new coat and I would love to see it go to needy hands.

That wasn't that short!  But, I'm going now.  Thanks for you help with my masters project by responding to the surveys and reading with your child every night!

Happy Monday Reading,

Mrs. Armstrong

Newsletter November 2 - November 6

 Happy November, Happy Birthday Lola and surprise it rained! This will definitely be an interesting week especially with the upcoming presidential election.  

We had a wonderful Halloween day at school and I heard many experiences with trunk or treats, face painting and spooky parties.    Here are this week's happenings:

• The following bits of information have also been sent home via REMIND (our East Remind).  If you do not have that set up yet and don't know how to do it please let me know and I can get you the information.               
• The nurse sent a message about student's not bringing masks to school.  We haven't really had a huge problem in our class, but I am almost out of the box that I received at the beginning of the year of back up masks and as soon as those are out I will have to send students who forget or lose theirs to the office.
• Free breakfast and lunch is being extended through the end of the year or until funds run out--how wonderful is that?!
• All items in the lost and found will be donated after this Friday--if your child is missing an item please have them look for it--if you send me a message I can remind your child to look their lost piece of clothing :)
• November reading calendars were sent home today.  The October calendars are due by this Wednesday for a certificate, treat and pizza hut coupon for a free personal pizza.  This is the only "homework" I require--thanks for reading with your child each night and/or practicing sight words.  
• This week in math we are learning about how to "make a ten" to add.  Using this strategy students use an addition problem such as 9 + 5 = where they take 1 from 5 to "make a ten" then the problem is "easier" as it becomes 10 + 4 = 14 so 9 + 5 also = 14.  At the end of the week we will start adding three numbers ( 3 + 5 + 4 = ). 
• In reading we are finishing up our second unit that focused mostly on long vowel sounds (silent e).  Many students are still slow in decoding (reading) words with the long vowel sounds in them so we will continue to reinforce that concept as we start into unit 3.  We are almost finished with our Human Body unit--we learned about immunizations and pasteurization last week and this week we will concentrate on healthy eating and the food pyramid. We will then head back to our Ancient World civilizations and begin our study of Ancient Egypt.  

Have a happy Monday, read with and love your kids!!  This is a special bunch!!  

Happy Reading,

Mrs. Armstrong