Week of October 17th

The school was very quiet Friday without the kids here. I have to admit, I missed them! We are having so much fun and working hard. This is the time of the year where things get CrAzY! I still cannot believe we are starting the 3rd week of October! Here are some upcoming events:

• October 18th - Picture Re-Take Day
• October 21st - official opening of the New Athletic Center. The entire student body will gather at 1:45 p.m. Families are welcome to join us. Be prepared for a lot of spirited cheers.
  
• October 28th - Halloween Parade and Fall Festival
• November 8th - Book Fair
• November 11th - Poetry in the Park
  
• November 17th - 2nd Grade Program

Please, please, please work on the poems with your child. They need to have all of them memorized. The poems for the 2nd grade program as well as Poetry in the Park are all included on the pages at the top tabs. The students also will be bringing home a sheet today with the poem parts for Poetry in the Park.

In math this week, we are taking our second assessment and beginning a new unit. Our new unit
will focus a lot on place value, money, and time. As I always mention :) please practice addition and math facts with your kiddo. I will be checking with them to see how their recall of these facts are going. We would like to get them to where they do not depend on using their fingers or counting in their heads.

As readers, we are continuing our work in Reader's Workshop. I LOVED hearing about all the good work going on at home. Many of the kids told me how much they enjoy using their Reader's Toolkits. We are continuing our work on making connections with our books - specifically making Text-to-Self Connections. These types of connections help us better understand the book because we can use experiences we have had to help us relate to the story. Our mentor text this week is Koala Lou!

I am so excited to announce that we will be having our Author Celebration on Monday right after Town Hall. Please join us! The kids will be sharing a story that they have written and revised and fancied up! The students will be gathered in 3 circles. They will share their stories within the circles. You will get the opportunity to hear all of the kids share their story. It should not take more than 30 minutes. I will explain more about the sharing procedure on Monday. Hope to see you then!

We have been talking about nouns in class - specifically proper nouns. Please make sure that when your kids are writing their sentences and/or doing their homework that they are only using capital letters at the beginning of a sentence or for names of nouns. If we both reiterate this, it will begin to stick! While I am talking about homework, please make sure your child reads all of the directions and that their work is completed neatly. How they practice is how they will continue to do their work.

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I am so thankful for all of you, have a great week!