February 22, 2016

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• Thank you to everyone who donated or came to our Valentine’s Day party. Everything was wonderful and we appreciate your time and generosity very much. I think all of the chocolate faces were evidence enough of the good time everyone was having.  I would also like to thank the class for the beautiful flower arrangement, it was lovely.
• Next Thursday, February 25^th, COSI comes to Chippewa! COSI will talk about the Incredible Human Body.  We will be eating lunch in the classrooms that day so if your child is buying a lunch there will only be first choice available that day and for packers milk will still be available. It should be a fun filled day for the children.  Be sure to ask your child all about it that night.
• We have come to the end of Unit 3 in Language Arts, so next week we will be assessing the skills we have learned. There will be a section on reading comprehension, a section on writing skills, a section on grammar and the children will be asked to write a paragraph.  We will do a little bit of the assessment each day so that it does not become overwhelming.
• In Math we are still working on Chapter 9: Properties and Equations. We are continuing to learn and practice the Distributive Property of Multiplication this week and we will move into multiplying more than two factors. 
• In Social Studies this week we will continue to talk about goods and services and producers and consumers.

Reminders:

• Current Events are due March 11, 2016
• Please remember your child's reading log is their homework so they should be filling out each time they read. Last week I had quite a few missing reading logs. When students bring in their reading log late they do not receive full credit.
• Keep practicing multiplication facts at home. We have approximately 6 students who have made it through all of their facts. If your child has been on a certain belt of facts for several weeks please make sure they are practicing at home, I have been sending home practice sheets each week for additional practice. 
• This week for spelling the children will be able to choose three activities to complete their practice, it will be due on Thursday.
• No vocabulary words this week.       

February 5, 2016

This week we finished our Science unit on Matter. We celebrated by having a root beer float that contains all three states of matter: solid, liquid and gas. Next week we will be moving on to a Social Studies unit about Economics. Don't forget current events are due by March 11.

Originally I had scheduled a unit test for Math on Area and Perimeter for Monday, February 8, however, we needed to work on some topics for a little longer so that the students had a good understanding of the concepts. Using the Distributive Property to find Area and finding the Area of composite shapes were two challenging concepts. I am going to give the students homework in these two areas over the weekend to give them more practice and keep it fresh in their minds. That being said, I have rescheduled the assessment for this Math chapter on Area and Perimeter for Wednesday, February 10.

This week I sent home a Kick It sheet with each student so that they could practice their multiplication facts at home as well as at school. Becoming more proficient with their math facts and building their math fluency  will be helpful to them as we move on to additional math units and skills. So keep practicing at home. 

In ELA we will be moving on to the next chapter in this unit and we will be working on those skills for two weeks. Since we will have Friday off and Monday off I don't feel that one week (four days) would be enough time to concentrate on the concepts in this chapter so we will be working on this chapter for two weeks. So I have adjusted the spelling test and vocabulary test to reflect this. 

Our Valentine's Day party will be on February 11th in the afternoon. If your child is going to pass out Valentine's Day cards please make sure that they bring in one for every child in the class, we currently have 20 students in the class. They will also need to bring in something to put the Valentine's Day cards they receive in, this can be something they make or something as simple as a gift bag. Please have your child bring in both of these items on February 11th, the day of the party.

Important dates:
February 10-Math Assessment Area and Perimeter
February 11-Valentine's Day Party
February 11-Spelling Test, Spelling Packet and Reading Log due for the week.
February 12-No School
February 15-No School
February 18-Vocabulary Test
February 19-Reading Chapter Test
February 25th-COSI visits the school
March 11-Current Events Due

As evidence that your child read this newsletter if they bring in the words "Happy Valentine's Day" written on a small piece of paper with their name and quietly place it on my desk they will earn a small reward.