Newsletter

Hi,

We had a great week and I hope that you are having a wonderful weekend.  Enjoy the Super Bowl!

Our Valentines Party is coming up.  I will ask the students for some suggestions and will get a sign up genius out this week.  Your child is welcome to decorate a box or bag at home that he/she can use as a valentine mailbox.  I will have bags available in class for anyone who doesn't make a decorated box or bag at home. If your child is passing out valentines in class, he/she needs to  have a valentine for ALL classmates.  Thank you in advance for including everyone.

Here is a list of the students in our class.  

Jacie

Robby

Matthew

Emily

Randall

Ihsan

Lillian

Roy

Jack

Kai

Bella

Aubrie N.

Evan

Hannah

Aubrey P.

Jameson

Max

Bracken

Brianne

Mason

Gage

Joy

Monthly Reading Challenge for February: Read 3 Informational Books and write notecards for each one.  Include: Title of book, genre (informational) 3 interesting or surprising facts learned and why you thought they were interesting,  2 questions you still have about this topic, 1 thought or feeling about the topic (These sentence starters may help: 

This makes me realize...., 

I used to think..., but now I think...., 

I agree that.... because....

I disagree that ... because....

This makes me wonder.....

These will be due on Feb. 28

Let's read about our week:

Reading-We will read informational text as well as some historical fiction.  We will examine literature that deals with civil rights and we started some book club books this week.  We will read independently and discuss our books in our groups. Last week, we read an article about the history of Brown vs. the Board of Education .  We took notes and discussed this case. We watched a Brainpop video on this topic.  We will continue this week with a read aloud of The Story of Ruby Bridges. Talk to your child at home about civil rights and that we need to treat all people with respect and appreciate all of our differences.

Writing-Our students wrote great personal narratives with lots of specific details and great voice.   This week we will gather new entries about our opinions with supporting reasons and examples to support those opinions.  We will work on adding specific details and lots of revising and editing to make our essays clear, concise, and interesting to read. Talk to your child about their opinions.  Have conversations about these opinions and use some of these sentence starters to help keep the conversation going. When they stop talking say: "What does that make you realize?" Then they can respond, "This makes me realize....."  Lots of discussion and supporting ideas with examples in conversation will help them apply these skills to their writing.

Sentence Starters to keep the conversation going:

This makes me realize...., 

I used to think..., but now I think...., 

I agree that.... because....

I disagree that ... because....

This makes me wonder.....

Grammar-We will continue our study of strengthening sentences by combining them and using openers to enhance meaning.  We will also look at flipping the subject to make our sentence beginnings more interesting and make our word choice stronger.

We will also look at correct ways to punctuate these sentences and which ways make our thoughts clear to the reader. Keep encouraging your child to find amazing sentences in his/her reading.  Talk about what makes a sentence effective and clear and different ways to rearrange a sentence and still keep the same complete thought.  Keep talking about sentences and grammar and how fun it is to experiment with language.

Spelling-This week we will work with words ending in ion. We will also have individual words.  Talk to your child about patterns in the words as you are studying spelling.

Social Studies-Last week, your child was an Empresario and read letters from potential colonists.  He/she evaluated the letter to decide whether to invite the person to come live in his/her colony.  It was very fun and interesting to hear the reason given.  We will begin talking about the Texas Revolution and Santa Anna.  We are reading aloud a historical fiction novel called Remember the Alamo to get some background knowledge and spark some discussion before reading facts in the textbook.  Soon we will work on reading biographies of some Texas Heroes and presenting projects about them.

Dates to remember:

Monday, Feb. 6-College Shirt Day- Service Club after school 2:50-3:50-Jump Rope for Heart this week

Tuesday, Feb. 7-PTA General Meeting at 9:00 am

Thursday, Feb. 9- Progress Reports come home

Friday, Feb. 10-Reading Response Letters due, Spelling test,  Be sure to turn in completed reading logs. Wear FCE shirts or purple and green.

Saturday, Feb. 11- UIL District Event-Go FCE!

Monday, Feb. 13-College Shirt Day- Writing Club after school 2:50-3:50

Tuesday, Feb. 14-Mentor Visit at 9:15 am, Valentine Party at 1:00

Thursday, Feb. 16-Jump Rope for Heart

Friday, Feb. 17--Reading Response Letters due, Spelling test,  Be sure to turn in completed reading logs. Wear FCE shirts or purple and green.

Monday, Feb. 20-No school for students

Wednesday, Feb. 22-Group and Spring Photos

Thursday, Feb. 23-Student Art and Frame sale

Friday, Feb. 24--Reading Response Letters due, Spelling test,  Be sure to turn in completed reading logs. Wear FCE shirts or purple and green.

Hope you had a great weekend!  Thank you for sharing your child with me.  Let me know if you have any concerns.

Sincerely,

Pam