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Update - January 26

1/26/2014

Hello Parents,

This week, we will wrap up unit 3 of Treasures and continue reading Maniac Magee. Each student will complete a book report/project in class, and will choose from a list of projects. Depending on the project, some supplies may be needed.

Spell-a-thon information went home last week - I hope everyone started studying the words!

Our mission field trip is this Friday. If you signed up to drive, we are planning on leaving no later than 8:45 a.m. A reminder letter will go home early this week.

Links to this week's "I'd Rather Read!" and "Poem of the Week" assignments can be found on the Language Arts page.

Have a great week,

Christina Polay

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Update - January 20

1/20/2014

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Hello Parents,

I hope you enjoyed your long weekend. I left school early Friday with an awful stomach bug. I feel so much better now, and I am excited to give you a few updates.

First of all, I'd like to say a belated Happy New Year to everyone and thank you again for all of the gifts and kind notes. In class, the year has started on a great note. I am excited about all that the rest of the year has in store.

I have been assigned a student teacher from Pepperdine University, who will start this week and will be with us for sixteen weeks.

We began reading Maniac Magee by Jerry Spinelli. The reading will be done in class, and although they really want to read ahead, I ask that they don't. It is a guided reading exercise that is meant to be done as a class or in small groups.

I have made my midyear changes to the I'd Rather Read assignment. Please click here to read more, but in short, students are required to only turn in a written response each Friday and do not have to keep a log of their daily reading. The response pages will still be available to download on the Language Arts page of the website, and they will be given out in class each Friday.

For the next two weeks, we will work on going deeper into poetry with a poem by Emily Dickinson. The Poem of the Week assignments will be posted on the Language Arts page after we read the poem on Tuesday.

To increase vocabulary and improve students' ability to figure out unknown words in reading and test-taking situations, I have started using the Reading Olympians program. Students progress at their own rate in learning Greek and Latin root words, prefixes, and suffixes. There are ten sets of highly used word parts. Each set is named after a Greek god/goddess. As they learn, find, and use the word parts, they will earn reading beads and ultimately reading tags for each set. You can help by pointing out words that contain the word parts. Our first set is the Nike Set.

This week's assessments: Spelling, Reading Comprehension, Math (prequiz and quiz).

Enjoy the rest of your day,

Christina Polay

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Update - January 26

Update - January 20

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