Each day there are students in charge of a current event. I have sent home a reminder with these students but I will also list them here.
Monday - Norika
Tuesday - Sabrina
Wednesday - Christos
Thursday - day 2, no current events
Friday - Nikhita
It has been a great week and the students seem to be settled into yet another school year. Most of the routines of the class are in place and students are embracing them in their own individual way. I congratulate all of them for a wonderful week.The biggest change coming this week is the weekly Vocabulary. I use a program called Wordly Wise which consists of 15 words with all the definitions. There are 5 parts to the program and students will do this each night as part of their daily homework. On Thursday night they will need to study for the test which is on Friday. The test is in two parts; 1) I will give them the definitions and they have to write the word for that definition and 2) sentences without the word are listed and students need to fill in the blanks with the words from the week. This is included in their homework packet I sent home on Friday.
We will also start our time lines this coming week so on Monday and Tuesday students will need to summarize an important event for each year of their life. For the younger years I have mentioned that they need to talk to their parents and take notes. If possible students can also collect pictures (photos, magazine cutouts, printouts from the computer, or drawings etc.) to put into their personal time lines. Please help your student out where you can for this very neat project. We will complete the project in class and this is just a data collection students are doing. Please note that students should only bring photographs that you do not want returned as they may need to cut them or reshape them.The instructions and papers for note taking are part of their homework packet I sent home on Friday.
The first of two writing prompts will happen Mon-Wed of this week. Students will have to complete a piece of writing based on a prompt given to them. It is marked by two teachers other than myself. If a student was here at HKIS last spring we will compare their scores and see where there are still teaching opportunities.
Reading this week will see us start our first shared reading and also guided reading. While the first is a class project the second is small groups that work with me. Reading lessons this week will continue to look at how students read and think while they are reading.
Our first unit in math - Number Theory is progressing very well. Students should be able to explain things like arrays, factors, factor rainbows and number models; mostly for multiplication and division. This coming week we move into divisibility rules, prime and composite numbers, square numbers and square roots. I will refer to square roots as unsquaring numbers and we will work with perfect numbers.
One new part of the classroom will be the introduction of Monday Folders. This is where I send home all the work of the previous week. Parents are asked to sign they received it. The folder is then returned the next day.
We had our first classroom elections and I want to congratulate
Sabrina, Christos and Lucas as they were elected by their peers. All students will have an opportunity to partake throughout the year since there is a new election about every 6 weeks.As always, if you have any questions please feel free to contact me.
Regards,
Harold Daw
