From Mrs. Pancham's Desk
Week of January 12th-16th
Hello and Happy New Year!
I talked with the students about how this nine weeks in like the 3rd quarter in a sporting game. It's almost the end, but this quarter is quite possibly one the most important quarters in the entire game. We have to commit to continuing to work hard and give our best effort in all that we do. If you could please have this discussion with your child as well, I would greatly appreciate. If we all work together to achieve positive results, we should expect great things at the end of this nine weeks, and the entire school year.
Ways That You Can Help Motivate and Help at Home:
- Continue to make school a priority
- Encourage independent reading
- Make sure students are completing all of the nightly homework assignments
- Help students stay organized
- Read and sign agendas and Fox Folders
- Ask students about what's going on in their classrooms
- Contact me if you have any questions, comments, or concerns
We are looking forward to a busy and full third nine weeks, so please help me help your child! As always, if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me!
Have a great weekend!
Report Cards and Fox Folders
If you have done so already, please return the Report Card Folder by Wednesday, January 21st, 2014. If you have questions or concerns about your child's report card, please let me know!
Thank you!
Reading, A.R., and Reading Logs
I have seen much growth in students' fluency and comprehension this year, so please keep up the reading!!
All A.R. Points are due on Friday, January 30th, 2014.
Lastly, if you are interested in purchasing books from January's Scholastic Book Order, please submit your order by Thursday, January 29th, 2014. There are a lot of great deals this month!! You can send your order in with your child, or order online! If you have questions, please let me know!
"Man-uary" MNES PTA Events
- Tuesday, January 20th: Positive Male Role Models with the last name A-K can participate in student's resource and lunch
- Thursday, January 22nd:Positive Male Role Models with the last name A-K can participate in student's resource and lunch
- Friday, January 30th: "Man-uary" Breakfast (more details to come)
Here's What's Happening in the Third Quarter!
In math, the third nine weeks students will be working on finding the mean, median, mode, and range of a set of data. Students will differentiate among perimeter, area, and volume, and identify whether the application of the concept of perimeter, area, or volume is appropriate for a given situation. Students will estimate and then measure to solve problems, using U.S. Customary and Metric units. Keep working towards 100% fluency on Reflex Math!
During the third nine weeks, students will continue in their reading groups. We will continue to read and work with fictional and non-fictional text. Students will continue to use and monitor their comprehension of these texts using a variety of reading strategies. We will also begin our unit on figurative language and exploring an author’s’ choice of words and vocabulary when writing. Students will also learn more about different purposes an author may write in text print, as well as in media messages.
In writing, students will continue to address writing prompt topics following the writing process. We will focus on clarifying a central idea and including supporting details to elaborate on a topic. In the grammar portion of writing, we will work on subject-verb agreement, as well as review some punctuation skills.
Word study in the third nine weeks will involve an in-depth study of prefixes, suffixes, and base and root words. Students will use a variety of reference materials, including a dictionary and thesaurus to understand that words have multiple meanings. Please continue to work on weekly reading and word study assignments.
We were busy during the second nine weeks completing the large Matter Unit in science and also the Light Unit. The students enjoyed the various experiments and activities. We determined the mass of density cubes using digital scales and separated a mixture/solution of water, salt and sand while studying Matter. Recently, we used prisms in class to refract visible light. Ask your child what the seven types of light energy in the electromagnetic spectrum are (from low frequency radio waves to high frequency gamma rays)!
We will continue with science when we return from Winter Break by starting with our Sound Unit. Our next history unit will be about 20th and 21st Century Virginia. This is a rather large unit that requires the children to learn about eight famous Virginians from that time period. It also involves the Civil Rights Movement, a popular topic each year.
If you have internet access at home, don’t forget that your child can use the following websites to review science and history: Study Island, solpass.org, and zondle.com. Zondle is different as the questions have been created by me using the infamous flashcards for the units we are studying.
Here’s to having a successful third nine weeks!