Atkinson Gazette
Room 203's Weekly Newsletter
What's UP in Room 203?
I hope you all had a great weekend! I spent the weekend moving to a new apartment - talk about fun ;) I wanted to let you know that I will be out Tuesday for the district, so if you have any notes or carpool changes that need to get to your kids, please let Paula or Priscilla know.
Super Student: Sienna
Academic News for the Upcoming Week
Math
Last week, students practicing the tedious task of counting money. We started with a pre-test, which helped me understand where each of your children stood regarding money. I took that data and we practiced counting coins together and then I let them practice on their own. We also ended each math lesson with a choice of three money games to extend their learning. When your students took their post-test, I could definitely see growth!
Starting on Monday morning, we will take our Math MAPS test. Then, the remainder of the week will be used for rounding. Students will learn strategies of how to round larger numbers up to 100,000. I will teach them strategies, we will try them, and they will practice individually - all while having engaging rounding games to end each session.
Keep in mind, students will continue to have daily math homework to reinforce skills learned in class as well as Daily 6 Review on Thursday nights. Also, please please please continue to work addition/subtraction facts at home.
Reading
We will also continue our lessons from last week about schema as well as take our Reading MAPS on Wednesday morning. Then, we will move onto questioning as readers. We are slowly guiding our instruction out of how to build a reader's life, and how to comprehend the books we are choosing to read!
We did get some new books added to our classroom library via points from parent orders and myself! Students were thrilled to see books that others had shared from our beloved books bin in our own classroom library. If you want to help out our growing library, all you need to do is order books for your own kids from the Scholastic Book Order! When parents order, they send me points that I can use to get books tailored to your children's likes! I even asked them to jot books they'd like to see in our classroom library and boy, did I get tons of post-its! They really are building a reading life!
Science/Social Studies
In the classroom, this week our focus will be the Declaration of Independence. Students will learn the concept of democracy and our historical documents such as the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights.
Writing
We are still focused on the PREWRITING stage of the writing process. We have spent the last couple of weeks creating ideas of what we can write longer about. Students have enjoyed getting to learn all the different ways writer's develop ideas! We will continue to learn various strategies this week.
We will continue our study of nouns. Last week students learned how different endings affect how a noun should be spelled plural. I would like to dig into this a little bit more so I can make sure our students fully understand. We will have a nouns test on Friday. It will focus on: what is a noun?, common noun vs. plural noun, and singular vs. plural nouns.
Spelling
Spelling HW this week:
Tuesday: Grade the Teacher
Thursday: Finish Google Doc via Google Classroom if not finished - most students were able to finish in class last week, but some did not and some did not go back into Google Classroom to finish. This will be written in their planner if they did not finish. Their Google login is on that computer login card I gave you at Parent Academic Night.
We will continue to have spelling lessons on Tuesday's and Thursday's, with spelling homework coming home on Tuesday's.
Also, I will be giving each student a PERSONAL WORD WALL to keep in their writing folder. This is where your child can write words they struggle with spelling so they can refer to it when needed. I have already started each child's word wall with the misspelled words from our beginning of the year spelling test. I will give these to the students on Monday.
Important Dates
Boosterthon Fun Run
Thursday, Oct 8, 2015, 09:30 AM
University Park Elementary School, Amherst Avenue, Dallas, TX, United States
Individual School Pictures
Tuesday, Oct 13, 2015, 08:00 AM
University Park Elementary School, Amherst Avenue, Dallas, TX, United States
About Miss Atkinson
Email: atkinse@hpisd.org
Website: http://up.hpisd.org/apps/pages/index.jsp?uREC_ID=419982&type=u
Location: 3505 Amherst Avenue, Dallas, TX, United States
Phone: (214) 780-3400