Happy New Year 2016

January 8, 2016

Dear Families,

Happy New Year 2016! Welcome back to school. I hope your break was healthy and restful. We are gearing up for some great topics and I thought I would take a moment to give you a preview.

This week we finished our study of geography and the cultures that are affected by landforms. The benchmark papers will come home next week along with report cards. Then, we will begin our study of economics, jobs and saving for short term goals. I am inviting you in to talk about your job. You could come in the afternoon on Jan. 22 or 29 at 1:45. Please let me know if you are interested. You only have to talk for 5 – 10 minutes. We are an awesome audience!  

Student-led conferences are coming on February 9. Watch for your sign-up genius invitation.  It should be coming soon. The students are looking forward to showing you all their work. Remember, your child must be present to lead the conference. I will share midyear testing with you at this time.

Reading – Our goal is level 10 - 12 by the end of January. I am excited to see what the midyear testing will show. I know everyone has improved! Our focus turns to character traits. As we identify those traits, we will look to the text to find supporting evidence of our choice. If I think the character is friendly, I want to show where in the text I find that out. We also are looking at who is telling the story.

Writing – As we celebrated a new year, we wrote some resolutions to be a better person. When you come for conferences, they will be published on the wall. I will give the midyear writing sample next week and move into research writing about an animal. We have done some shared research already about penguins.

Math – We will be finished with Unit 5 in Everyday Math in January. We’ll take the unit test this month and then I’ll send the first Math Journal home. There might be some unfinished pages for a variety of reasons such as an absence or a teacher decision not to finish because we ran out of time. Feel free to finish as much or as little as you want at home. The book is not to be returned to school. The 100^th Day of School is around the corner. We will be celebrating this event with many stimulating and fun math activities around 100. Begin to help your child think about a collection of 100 things that can be put on a poster to show grouping strategies. More information will go home soon.

Spelling – Keep up the good work with helping your child be prepared for the Friday quick check. Afterwards, the students are expected to use the pattern or spell the high frequency word correctly in their writing.

The January Book-It form was in the homework folder. Please return the December form by next week for a Pizza Hut certificate. Book orders are due Jan. 14.

 Thank you,

 Susan Stark