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