Week of 9/29/08

Hi all!! It was a busy weekend for my family, but a good one. Hope you enjoyed yours. Last week was a pretty hectic week between hearing tests, pictures, and Apple Day. This week should be a calmer week. :) I wanted to say a special thank you to: Jaycee Booth, Racheal Holsten, Teresa Moore, Linda Tutt, Keylie's friend, and Cooper's grandparents for making Apple Day such a success! I couldn't have done it without you! The children learned many things ranging from weight and circumference to the scientific method. We made homemade applesauce, as did our kindergarten partners, so we had an applesauce picnic in the courtyard. They also carved apple heads. They are drying in our extra bedroom as I type this. They will take a couple of weeks to dry completely, just in time to create a Halloween character! Hope you enjoyed the slideshow of our Apple Day.

This week in math we will study addition properties, equations, and input/output. In reading we will finish up our literature circles. The children are doing very well on their comprehension work and their fluency! Their final assignment with their story will be to create a poster of their favorite part(s). Spelling words will cover the sounds of "i". In English, we will focus on verbs. Social studies topics include Native American removal, cattle drives, moving West, and land runs.

Last week we spent a lot of time learning about and discussing famous people of Oklahoma, including playing a 1 hour long game on Thursday. I am glad to say that it paid off for most of the children! I am very proud of them! The majority of the kids made a "C" to an "A+" on their test! Those are very good grades because this was a hard test, and probably the first major test for most of them. I am glad to see that so many of the kids have good study skills. It is so important! I told the kids on Wednesday that this was a lot of information and that they would need to spend more time than 30 minutes Thursday evening studying. I suggested to them to work on getting familiar with the info on Wednesday as well. Luckily, we won't have tons of big tests like this, however, we will have a few. The next big one will be in a few weeks when we culminate all the Oklahoma history we will have learned. I will give the children a study guide several days before hand. It helps when they pay attention in class too. :)

I will be sending home book orders on Monday. They will be due on Friday. There are a lot of Fall and Halloween stories in this issue to check out! Remember that if your child ordered from the September book order, they get to choose a free book ($4 or under) this time.

Don't forget that our Turkey Creek field trip is scheduled for Friday. It should be a lot of fun! The $3 admission charge is due on Wednesday. The pictures are $7 if you want one. They are very neat pictures. Remember too, that your child will need to bring a sack lunch that day. It is also fun to dress up pioneer style. I usually have about 90% participation in dressing up, but it isn't mandatory.

Here are the 2 spelling lists:

since
which
inch
string
title
shrimp
picnic
mind
wild
decide
why
skyscraper
buy
right
lightning
write
cypress
bicycle
tipi
input

Enrichment words:
binocular challenging flaunted brilliant kinsfolk languages indulge disinfectant justice hastiness genuine neighbor cafeteria appreciation embellish