November!!!

Hard to believe it's already November and days off from school are just around the corner! Although time off is nearing, we still have a lot of work to do. We are about to take 6 weeks test in Math & Reading...these are very important. This Thursday is the Reading test and next Wednesday we will take Math. These two tests cover everything from this 6 weeks!

We have been reading Non-Fiction text and studying text features. The students are able to find them in their own books now! We will continue with this topic the rest of the week as well.

We are also finding the MAIN IDEA of the story. This can be tricky because sometimes students want to choose tiny details in the story as the main idea. We are thinking of it as an umbrella and the rain drops are the details. While reading at home, ask your student what the main idea of their book is and have them pick out some supporting details of their main idea.

Which  brings me to my next point... I STILLLLLLLLL have students not reading at home. This is very frustrating. I have asked many times, AND it's their homework!!! I have no choice but to take away privileges and write DHalls since this is a  continuing problem. Please please please have your child read at home AND sign their log. All I am asking is for 20 minutes of their night. I am checking reading logs daily and expect to see parents' signatures.

Spelling this week is words that end in -ice and -ide. Their words are nice, rice, mice, slice, dice, side, ride, wide, hide, slide,  and BONUS: ice cream, glider.

Telling time is our topic in Math. Students should know from 1st grade their basic time telling skills; like the hour hand is short and the minute hand is long. We are working on skip counting around the clock by 5 to find the minute. I sent a paper clock home today with your student. Please use it to practice telling time. We will soon move on to telling time to the quarter and half hour and this involved new vocabulary like "a quarter to" and "half past". So, it is imperative that we are able to tell basic time once these skills come up.


Have a great week! I'll try to post some pictures as soon as my email quits acting up!