Good Afternoon Families!

Our school year is off and running! It was an absolute pleasure meeting many of you at curriculum night. I hope you found it to be an informative and useful evening.  Your involvement and support are greatly appreciated! If you have a Twitter account be sure to follow me at  julie_holzhauer  to hear about some of our educational adventures! 

In addition to becoming comfortable with all of our organizational and academic routines, we have been doing a variety of teambuilding activities in order to establish a level of trust between classmates! Each Friday, we try to end the week with a team builder in order to start the weekend on a positive note. Last Friday we played the card game Left, Center, Right in groups. The kids loved it! Today I introduced the card game Spoons to the class. They played in groups and really enjoyed it! Be sure to ask your student about it!!

The link you clicked on is our classroom Blogger page, which will have bi-monthly classroom updates.  Included in the updates will be our current target concepts in all academic areas, classroom events, and important upcoming dates.  An email with a link to our classroom Blogger page will be pushed out every two weeks when our Blogger page is updated.

Here are the targets we are currently / planning on working to master over the next couple of weeks:

Literacy

* Our students are currently working on comparing and contrasting characters, events, and settings of stories, including how characters in a story or drama respond to challenges. We are also working on “quoting accurately” within a text which involves students supplying text support for their answers. We are greatly enjoying our shared reading book, Night of The Spadefoot Toads. Because some of the chapters are quite lengthy, students are being required to read portions at home. They are welcome to use their print copy, or read the story on their I-Pads. Students are welcome to use this reading towards their daily required reading of 20-30 minutes. Home reading logs have been introduced and students will soon become comfortable with the routine of recording their minutes. Please encourage your student to find a convenient spot at home to keep his/her log. Students should be recording the minutes themselves each day. They are due back each Monday with a parent signature. Our first check in will be Monday, Sept. 9.

Writing

Our students are off to a great start writing narrative pieces.  We are currently working on planning an original story, including a effectively written introduction, well-developed body paragraphs, and an effective conclusion. 

Math

*Our students are currently working on writing and evaluating numerical expressions with parentheses as well as demonstrating their understanding of how to find the volume of rectangular prisms. The first few weeks have also involved getting used to our math routines. In fact, with the new month approaching, we will also be starting our daily Number Corner routine. 

Please check take home folders for your child's math checkpoint. After looking it over, kindly sign the attached slip and return the entire packet back to school on Tuesday. Any student who did not receive a mastery grade or higher will receive extra help/support.

Science

Instruction utilizing our TCI science curriculum is well underway!  Our current focus is on understanding the makings of a various ecosystems around the world. Today we traveled to virtual ecosystems around globe, making not of the living and nonliving organisms that interacted on each. Next, we will be learning more specifically about the producers, consumers and decomposers who make up our ecosystem. Our ecosystems unit ties nicely into the reading we are doing with The Night of the Spadefoot Toad book we are reading during our literacy block.

Social Studies

Because our focus has been on Science for the last few weeks, we have not yet started our first Social Studies unit. Stay tuned for more details in the upcoming days ahead!

Upcoming Events

** Monday September 2rd - No School (Labor Day)

**Friday, Sept. 13—Ivy Hall Fun Run

**Tuesday, September 24th—Early Release @ 2:00

**Monday, September 30th—No School/District Holiday

Friendly Reminders

** Please remember to send your child with a healthy snack.  Nothing feeds the brain like a healthy snack!  

** Please continue to have your child practice their multiplication facts up to 12.

Have a great long weekend!