Weekly Wrap Up

How is it we only have about 35 days of school left this year? Yikes! There will be lots of special events and activities that take place over the next month and a half, but our learning continues. Homework still continues on, and it gets a little harder now for some children to manage their time when they have school events, sporting practices, and various other activities. Even though your child has been doing homework all year, they might need a little extra help from you now to budget their time between homework, events, and just being a kid and playing. 

We’re getting close to doing our end of year math fact tests. Students are expected to score at 80% or higher in order to be considered proficient in their facts. Some children are coming home today with specific facts they need to work on. Please ask your child what he/she needs to memorize.

Here's what we're learning about next week:

Reader’s Workshop: Comparing and contrasting characters across books

Writer’s Workshop: Persuasive Writing and assessment

Math: Area and perimeter review

Social Studies: Plainville

Please remember that my door is always open if you have any questions or concerns. I also check email frequently. Together we are partners in your child’s education!

Weekly Wrap Up

What super hard workers your children were this week! I wish you could have been a fly on the wall watching them write amazing 5 paragraph persuasive papers, thoughtfully discuss the books they have been reading, and carefully calculate area and perimeter,. One way you can help your child with area and perimeter at home is to help them measure and calculate the area and perimeter of their room, a small rug on the floor, the dining room or kitchen table (if they’re square or rectangular), or even just a book they’re reading. This week they learned the “secret formula” for area is length X width.

Now that spring has arrived, many of the children are talking about their spring sports, games, and upcoming recitals. Any time your child has a special event in his/her life outside of school, feel free to send in a picture or email it to me so they can share it with us. Short videos are okay too. I’ll put it up on the SmartBoard so your child can share his/her events with their friends in class. No show and tell tickets are required for this!  :)

Students do not need to keep track of their home reading and home math fact practice during our April vacation next week. I’m sure they’ll keep practicing those facts, and still read, But, it’s vacation, so enjoy and don’t worry about keeping the logs!

Here's what we'll be learning about after vacation:

• Reader’s Workshop: Comparing and contrasting characters across books
• Writer’s Workshop: Persuasive Writing
• Math: Area of Irregular Shapes
• Social Studies: Plainville

Please remember that my door is always open if you have any questions or concerns. I also check email frequently. Together we are partners in your child’s education!

Weekly Wrap Up

Now that warmer weather is arriving, please try to make sure your child has a water bottle for school. They are outside 2-3 times a day between wellness and recess, and are quite thirsty when they come in! Also, with the warmer weather can come fluctuations in the classroom temperature. A sweater or sweatshirt kept in the your child’s locker might come in handy once the AC is turned on.

I want to let families know that I’m going to be out of school on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday of next week (March 30, 31, and April 1) for minor oral surgery. I’ve already written detailed plans for the sub, so your child’s regular learning will continue! Please know that next Friday there will not be a newsletter or a progress report. There will be homework throughout the week, and home reading and math fact logs should continue. I will check them when I’m back the following week.

A few reminders:

• Students need to have a note from home each week to use their electronics during Fun Friday. 
• Sneakers should be worn on Wednesdays for gym.
• Recorders and music need to come back to school on Tuesdays for music.
• Please do NOT send foods with peanuts, tree nuts or seafoods at snack due to food allergies.

Here's what we're learning about in the next two weeks:

• Reader’s Workshop: Book Clubs
• Writer’s Workshop: Persuasive Writing
• Math: Perimeter and Area
• Social Studies: Plainville

Please remember that my door is always open if you have any questions or concerns. I also check email frequently. Together we are partners in your child’s education!

Weekly Wrap Up

Since we have two short weeks, this newsletter will be for the weeks of March 14th and March 21st.

As you begin to take out spring clothes for your child to see what still fits, or are buying new things, please keep the dress code in mind. Shorts and skirts/dresses should not be any shorter than the tips of fingers with arms hanging at side. Spaghetti straps or strapless tops should not be worn, and sandals should have heel straps. More info. on the dress code can be found in family handbook, located in the back of the school calendar.

Today we began our new math unit on geometry. Since there are a number of terms that you might not have seen since your days in school (Who remembers scalene triangles or obtuse angles?) the vocab cards for the unit are attached. Students also have a copy in their math notebook in class. We will be using our new knowledge to design towns applying various terms (ex: two streets must be parallel). There won’t be any math papers for homework, but students need to work on memorizing the meanings of the topic vocabulary words.

If you haven’t yet done the parent communication survey, please take a minute to fill it out. It’s linked off the front of our class website. Thanks!

Here's what we're learning about for the next two weeks:

• Reader’s Workshop: Book clubs 
• Writer’s Workshop: Persuasive Writing 
• Math: Geometry Town
• Social Studies: Connecticut

Please remember that my door is always open if you have any questions or concerns. I also check email frequently. Together we are partners in your child’s education!

Weekly Wrap Up

I’d love to get parent feedback on the various methods of communication I use to share information from the classroom. If you get a chance over the next few days, please take a few minutes to fill out a really short communication survey I put together. It’s linked off the front of our class website:  https://sites.google.com/a/plainvilleschools.org/carnevalea/ 

Our field trip to the New Britain Museum of Art is on Friday, March 11th. Since we are leaving before our normal lunch time, we’ll picnic in the classroom before we leave on the trip. Students can still buy their lunch, or bring it, the same as they would any other day.

New pictures from January, February and early March have been added to the class photo album page on our website!

Look for the conference appointment slip, with your conference time on it, to come home on Monday in your child’s Jungle Book! Please let me know as soon as you can if you need to change it.

Here's what we're learning about next week:

• Reader’s Workshop: Book clubs 
• Writer’s Workshop: Persuasive Writing 
• Math: Fractions
• Social Studies: Connecticut

Please remember that my door is always open if you have any questions or concerns. I also check email frequently. Together we are partners in your child’s education!

Weekly Wrap Up

Today your child is bringing home a math fact test score report. It includes their monthly fact tests from December until now. I know you see a weekly score on their progress reports. This monthly score report will enable you to see growth each month since they began testing for multiplication and division. If you’re wondering why the scores on the February test might be different from the scores on the most recent weekly tests, it’s because there were different tests given on different days. Please sign it the for this weekend and return it on Monday with your child. 

Do your kids ever complain that they’re bored or there’s nothing to do? Our class website has the answer for you and your child! The Just for Kids section is filled with links to educational activities and games, as well as keyboarding practice. The Safari Scholar section will stretch your child’s brain with 100 unique and challenging tasks!

Conference request forms are due on Monday. If you haven’t returned yours, please do so on Monday. If you lost it, just drop me an email this weekend and let me know what days/times are best for you, and I’ll fit you into the schedule. The choices for conferences are:

• Monday, March 21st in the evening
• Tuesday, March 22nd in the afternoon
• Wednesday, March 23rd in the evening

Here's what we're learning about next week:

• Reader’s Workshop: Growing theories about characters
• Writer’s Workshop: A little fun story writing followed by the Persuasive Writing unit pretest
• Math: Fractions
• Social Studies: Connecticut 

Please remember that my door is always open if you have any questions or concerns. I also check email frequently. Together we are partners in your child’s education! 

Weekly Wrap Up

I just realized I forgot to post the information from the last newsletter, so this will have info from both.

We recently started something new to help students master their multiplication facts - Multiplication Fact of the Day. Here’s how it works... Assuming that the children have mastered their 0s, 1s, 2s, and 10s, there are only 28 facts to memorize when we take into consideration the commutative property of multiplication (ex: 3x8=8x3). Each day, for 6 out of 7 days, students will have just one multiplication problem to memorize. I’ll write it up on the board that day, and we’ll go over it multiple times during the day. There’s also a home calendar with each fact of the day written on it. I’m asking parents to really go over the problem at home with their child, too. Let them see it, say it, and write it. It won’t hurt to throw in a previous problem of the day, either. I don’t know if this will work for sure, it’s a new idea, but it’s worth a try. If this works, then I’ll do the same thing for division. In case you’re wondering, here are all of the facts that need to be memorized:!

• 3x3, 3x4, 3x5, 3x6, 3x7, 3x8, 3x9 (7 facts)
• 4x4, 4x5, 4x6, 4x7, 4x8, 4x9 (6 facts)
• 5x5, 5x6, 5x7, 5x8, 5x9 (5 facts)
• 6x6, 6x7, 6x8, 6x9 (4 facts)
• 7x7, 7x8, 7x9 (3 facts)
• 8x8, 8x9 (2 facts)
• 9x9 (1 fact)

This week the kids took over the newsletter! Here’s what they want you to know...

• Shannon: Today we learned so much about Helen Keller.
• Elizabeth: We watched a clip of the real Helen Keller in her Easton, CT house.
• Ethan: We had popcorn today during the movie.
• Mary: We also saw a cartoon about Helen Keller.
• Rhiana: We did our monthly multiplication and division quizzes.
• Alana: We now have a wall of honor for multiplication and division.
• Maryla: We saw Helen Keller’s CT house in Google Maps street view.
• Addie: We saw Helen Keller’s Alabama house in Google Maps street view, and it’s now a museum.
• Hailey: We’re finishing our information books
• Amelia: Study your math facts!
• Jared: We’ve learned about writing endings for information books.
• Shannon: We finished packet #4 in cursive handwriting. (Mrs. Carnevale says this means they’ve learned all of the lower case letters in cursive!)
• Mary: Next week we start upper case letters in cursive.
• Ethan: Practice reading!
• Maia: We book shopped this week for our new levels of fiction.
• Tyler: We’re starting a new unit in reading.

If you have extras of these at home, we could use them:!

• Paper plates
• Plastic grocery store bags

A few reminders... 

• Wear sneakers on Wednesdays!!
• Bring recorders and music on Tuesdays!!
• Notes are needed every Friday for electronics during Fun Friday!

Here's what we're learning about next week:

• Reading - Orienting to Fiction at our new levels
• Writing - Finishing (finally!) information books and information writing test
• Math - Fractions
• Social Studies - Connecticut

Please remember that my door is always open if you have any questions or concerns. I also check email frequently. Together we are partners in your child’s education!