Mrs. Hawker's Newsletter
January 17th, 2014
Language Arts
Reading Closely
This month we are really reading text closely. This involves thinking about our reading in a variety of ways. For example, when we read an article about citizenship we may first read it to see what are the main ideas and also focus on what information the text features give us. A second reading may be to see what the author really wants us to learn and the details that support that learning. The third reading might be watch the words the author uses and how he or she puts them together. This will seem really tedious, but you'll be amazed how students will start to look at text differently, for different meanings.
Writing
In writing we are working on improving our responses to reading. To do this we are using the sites http://wonderopolis.org/ or http://tweentribune.com/ . Both of these sites offer articles for the students to read and learn new things. They are really quite interesting! Students will choose their articles and then make a response to those articles. What's expected: their response should include questions they may have, aha moments of understanding, connections to their lives or knowledge of the world, and most importantly facts or evidence from the article. After a few practice ones, these will be graded.
BIG UNIVERSE
MATH
In math we will continue to have ungraded timed tests on their basic multiplication and division facts. To meet the standard students are expected to be able to solve a basic fact in 3 seconds. That's 1 minute for 20 problems. Timing students seems to really stress the kids out, but that is not my intention. This quarter we will really practice and get better at the timings and will start to grade them in 3rd quarter. Please go over these with your child and help support them in their efforts to meet their goals. If you want to print out practice sheets you can them here Math-aids.com.
Social Studies
In Social Studies, we are studying citizenship and government. The articles we read will have to do with citizenship and government. You'll notice the kids highlighting and writing notes in margins. This is perfectly fine, but if you notice your child highlighting everything, please guide them to choose only the most important ideas to highlight
News and UPCOMING EVENTS
- Scholastic Book Orders due Monday January 20th.
- To order online http://mrshawker.weebly.com/scholastic-book-orders.html
- NO SCHOOL Friday, January 24th
- I am almost done completing running record assessments. I will send home your child's information and reading level next week.
- We had a science presentation from Professor Gizmo on Tuesday. Thank you PTO for funding this wonderful learning opportunity! Ask all about it!
- A BIG THANK YOU TO MRS.KING for helping out every Wednesday with reading in our class!
Contact Mrs. Hawker
Email: sarahawk@hssd.k12.wi.us
Website: www.mrshawker.weebly.com
Phone: 920-676-7915