Good Afternoon Parents,
Happy Friday! 5 long days, but 5 fun days. We reviewed our reading skills and have begun preparing for the SOL tests. The students had a chance to look at what the SOL looks like and practiced taking one of the reading passages. They did a great job roadmapping the text and answering the questions.
Fidgets:
Most students are coming to class with multiple fidgets and trinkets. These are becoming extremely distracting to them as well as many others in the class. If your child needs a fidget to help him/ her focus, we understand and it should be used discreetly as such. If a fidget is becoming distracting and is hindering your child's ability to complete their work we will ask them to put them away and leave them at home. If you could reinforce this with your child, we would appreciate it.
Spring Break Travel Notification:
Spring Break is coming! There is NO school for students from Monday, March 29th thru Friday, April 2nd. School resumes Monday, April 5th. If you plan to get an early start on travel, and your child will be absent in advance of Spring Break, please kindly notify both the office and me in advance. I will send home a Spring Break reading incentive next week.
Spring Break Reminders:
If you are going away and you have time, please make sure your child continues to read each day. If they want to keep a journal to help reinforce those writing skills that is strongly encouraged. They are welcome to share these journals and adventures when we return. Their RAZ Kids, Epic, and Dreambox accounts will continue to work if they want to login on their Chromebook over break and utilize those programs.
Sentence Practice:
Each morning before the Morning Meeting, I put a sentence up for the students to edit, revise or change. I ask that they write them in their Reading Journal which they are to bring home each day. I am noticing that many students are only doing the sentences when in school. Since they are home 3 out of the 5 days, it is imperative that they are completing the sentences at home. Mrs. Gumbel and I check their sentences in their journals each morning when they arrive to school the following day. This is part of their effort and participation grade. Finding mistakes in our writing and being able to construct a strong detailed sentence is very challenging and requires a lot of practice. This activity will not only help them be able to do edit their own work but will also prepare them for 5th grade.
This activity supports our SOL 4.7, which states:
The Student will elaborate writing by...
a. engaging in writing as a process
i. elaborate writing by including details to support the purpose
k. use transition words and prepositional phrases for sentence variety
l. Utilize elements of style, including word choice and sentence variation
m. Revise writing for clarity of content using specific vocabulary and information
I log on my Meet each morning at 7:50am. The sentence is presented from 7:50-8am to give the students plenty of time to get their sentence work done before the school announcements come on. Please make sure your child gets logged on with enough time to complete their morning work.
Focus Areas for the Coming Week:
- Reading: We will continue preparing for the Reading SOL and learning different test taking strategies that can help them when taking any test.
- Math: We will begin division. We will start by looking at the vocabulary and the relationship between multiplication and division.
- Social Studies: We will wrap up the last few pages of Chapter 4 this week. (A Growing Virginia)
I hope you find some time to get outdoors and enjoy the beginning of Spring! Baseball officially begins for Darius this weekend. I am looking forward to spending my weekends on the ball field and adding a bit of excitement and normalcy to my days!
Your feedback is always welcome. Please let me know if you have any questions or comments.
