Hi, October 5, 2014
We had another busy, but productive week. Many of our classmates went to other classrooms to give a presentation for Service Club. They spoke to other students about our Toy Drive for Dell Children’s Hospital. The drive will give toys to sick children at the hospital, but the drive is to also raise awareness for OMS, which is a disease in which the child’s immune system tries to fight a tumor and ends up attacking the brain. Please send in NEW toys for our toy drive and put them in the box by the office. Baby toys, stuffed animals, board games, matchbox cars, crayons, etc… are all needed. Our goal is to collect 150 toys by November 14. Thank you for your donation.
Service Club meets this week in our room on Thursday from 2:45-3:45. All 4th and 5th graders are welcome to join. This week, we will be continuing to promote our OMS Toy Drive by making more posters and hanging them in the hallways and making a thermometer to keep track of our donations. We will count the donated toys so far and learn more about OMS and Dell Children’s Hospital. We will also talk about possible projects for the future.
Parent/Teacher/Student Conferences are coming up! Ms. Fry and I will be conducting the conferences together with your child leading the 15 minute discussion. We will send out a Sign-Up Genius link for you to schedule your conference. We will have some afterschool times as well as during the day on Saturday, October 18. We will let you know specifics early this week.
Writing Club met on Thursday. We had a great turn out, but would always love to have more writers. All 2nd-5th graders are welcome. We talked about writing in general, then talked about graphic novels or comic book-like novels. Many of the kids made their own comic strips and others worked on their own writing. They all worked hard and were creative. Our next Writing Club meeting is on Thursday, October 16 from 2:45-3:45 in the library.
We met with our reading buddies on Friday and had a Cedar Ridge Football player come to our room to work with us. We shared our personal narratives with our buddies and with Noah, our football player.
Our counselor, Miranda Owens, came to do a lesson for us on Thursday. We played a game using information about her role and duties as a counselor at school and ways that she can help us.
In social studies, we continued to research our region and began writing an expository essay to explain and teach about the region. We are in the process of peer editing and conferencing about the essays, then will work on our projects this week.
In writing, we celebrated finishing our Personal Narratives and began planning our writing for Reflections. We will finish those this week and begin writing entries for expository writing. This writing will include a central idea and supporting details and its purpose is to explain or teach information.
In reading, we began reading lots of expository or informational books. We looked for text features and their purposes. Text features include table of contents, index, glossary, photos, charts, captions, and subheading or subtitles. We will continue to read expository books and examine the different structures of the text or how the information is organized. We will also be making inferences (background knowledge +information from text=inference) and examining fact and opinions in the text.
Vocabulary words are posted on Quizlet. These words come from our small books that we read and discuss during guided reading groups. The children will have their notecards with the words and definitions written on them and the vocabulary words and defintions are also stapled to their agenda. Email me if your child is not able to access quizlet.com.
In spelling, we worked on words with double consonants like address and difficult. This week, we will look at plurals and ways that words change from singular to plural.
Thank you for helping your child study vocabulary and spelling at home.
Book Club orders will be submitted tonight. Go to www.scholastic.com then parents then order from a reading club flyer. Our class activation code is GYTDB.
Nichole Allison, our student teacher, has been doing more of the planning and instruction for our class and is doing a wonderful job. We are so lucky to have her with us.
Dates to remember:
Monday, Oct. 6-Reading log due, Tutorials after school 2:45-3:45
Tuesday, Oct. 7-Tutorials after school 2:45-3:45, Computer Lab open 2:45-3:45
Wednesday, Oct. 8-Summary and Response due
Thursday, Oct. 9-Service Club after school 2:45-3:45 in room 512, Computer lab open 2:45-3:45
Friday, Oct. 10-Summary and Response Due, Spelling Test, Vocabulary test, Mad Science Assembly
Tuesday, Oct. 14-Pen Pal Visit! 9:30-10:30 am in the library
Have a great rest of the weekend! Enjoy the beautiful weather! Let me know if you have any questions or concerns.
Sincerely,
Pam Bartholomew
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