Fontaine Flier
August 21, 2015
What I Really Want Your Child To Bring Home Every Day
I hope at the end of the day, when you ask your child, "What did you do in school today?" your child can give you a better answer than, "Nothing." In fact, what I really hope is that you don't even have to ask. I hope that your child is so excited about what they learned that they will blurt out a summary without any need for prompting. I hope your child doesn't dwell on what was taught, but on what was learned. Most importantly, I hope your child can't wait to see just what we will learn the next day.
"I like a teacher who gives you something to take home to think about besides homework." -Lily Tomlin
Important Dates to Remember
Wednesday, August 26
Fall Pictures
Friday, August 28
Grill Day
2:45 Watermelon Feed
Monday, August 31
Skate City 6-8 pm
Thursday, September 3
PTA Meeting 7PM
Monday, September 7
Labor Day-No School
Tuesday, September 8
Papa John's Night
Items Needed for the Classroom (If you have them laying around.)
Shoeboxes
Clean pop cans
Googly eyes
Yarn
buttons
Candy for students to purchase on Fridays with their Chicken Nugget Cash (I know...crazy name.) :)
Small items for our Treasure Box
Genius Hour-Create Something That Will Make the World AWESOME!
Don't Forget to have your child read 20 minutes each night!
Coming Up This Week...
Social Studies-
Do you know why there is a Tropic of Cancer and a Tropic of Capricorn or why it is so hot near the equator?
If not, ask your child! In Social Studies, we have been busy travelling the globe applying what we have learned about latitude and longitude! We will have our first unit test on Tuesday. Students have two papers in their binder that they may use to study. Our next unit will be Native Americans!
On Fridays students will participate in one of my favorite programs-Genius Hour! This program is based on the 20% Google principle and the passion driven classroom concept. Our theme for Genius Hour is: Create Something That Will Make the World Awesome! Students will collaborate with partners on a topic of their choice, will conduct research, create a presentation on the ipad, and present it to the class. I am so impressed with their first round of Genius Hour topics! Wow! I cannot wait to see their presentations!
Math-Study guides were sent home on Friday. Topic 1 test over place value (whole numbers and decimals) on Tuesday. Students will need an old sock or white board eraser for math every day.
Writing-Focus on Word Choice/Using Strong Verbs in our writing
Writing Piece-Tragic Life of a Pop Can
Reading-We are reading one of my favorite books-Shiloh, by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor. I am using this book to reinforce the habits of great readers (metacognition (thinking about our thinking as we read), asking questions, checking for understanding, visualization as we read (the movie in our head), and characterization (how characters develop and change throughout the story. We are also learning how to do close reading which is taking a small chunk of text and really digging in deep to extract more meaning.
Essential Question-What do great readers do to better comprehend the text?
Target Skills-dialect, point of view, characterization
Target Strategies-Monitor and Clarify, visualization, asking questions
Spelling-Long Vowel A and E
Specials Schedule
Monday-Art
Tuesday-Library
Wednesday-Computer Lab/Music
Thursday-PE/Counselor
Friday-Music/PE
Spelling City should be up and running in a week or two. We are waiting for student logins to be established. I will keep you posted!
Spelling
Each week we will be taking our spelling post test on Thursday and the new pretest on Friday. Based on their performance, students will be placed on either the regular list (20 words), challenge list (regular 20 words + 5 challenge words), or the super challenge list which will consist of fifteen vocabulary words. Students on the super challenge list are responsible for knowing both the definition of the word and the correct spelling. These lists are sent home every Friday. The practice pages that are sent home on Friday contain the list of words for the week. The practice pages are due Thursday morning.