March 28th

Dear Parents,
We are going to return to fiction test and writing summaries again in preparation for ht upcoming DRA Test.  Wow 88% of our class is reading over 100 WPM, that's impressive.  We have finished our unit on time but there are 8 students who did not pass with 90% or higher so they will be reviewing and retaking the test this next week.  Please check your child's homework because I wrote on it if they were one of the students who did not pass. Also several students have a "N" in Learning Habits and Reading because they have not turned in their reading calendar and homework.  School is not out yet-- let's keep working.
Here is a copy of the notes that were attached to your homework this week.

*March Reading Calendar is Due FRIDAY. 

*Please read the requirements for the animal report.  If the students work on it little each day it will not seem so big. They should have almost all of the information from their notes they took in class. 

*All the students took the posttest for “TIME” last week.  If they are still working on it during school then they did not pass it and could use extra help at home.  Their homework should be a review for them.

*The students will be bringing home their habitats on Wednesday.  If any parents would like to come and view them they will be up in our classroom Tuesday.  If your child walks home or rides a bike you may want to come and pick them up on Wednesday (BEFORE OR AFTER SCHOOL).  Some of the habitats would be hard to carry home. Thanks for all your supplies. This activity is one of their favorites.

  

Here is the requirements for the students animal reports:

Animal Book Requirements:

·      Cover: Title, author, picture (copied or hand drawn)

·      Table of Contents: Chapter Headings and page numbers in numerical order.

·      5 Chapters:  Heading (title), 1 Main Idea and at least 3 supporting details. Each sentence needs to support the heading and main idea for each chapter. Concluding statement.

·      At least one illustration or drawing.

·      At least one photograph. (Can be black and white)

·      Captions under drawings or illustrations.

·      Labels under drawings or illustrations.

·      Glossary:  At least 3 words in ABC order with definitions.  (The words in the glossary should be in Bold or colored in their book.)

·      Index:  At least 3 words that appear in the book that is of interest.  They need to be ABC order with the page numbers they appear in their book.

·      Map of where in the world their animal can be found or other information that fits in their book.

·      Diagram of anything interesting on their animal.

Some of your headings could be: Babies, Adulthood, Food or Eating Habits, Predators, Habitats, Fun Facts, Hunting, Camouflage, Life Cycles, What Humans Use Them For, Nocturnal or Diurnal, Hibernate or Migrate, How To Take Care Of This Animal, etc.

We will project these books and the children will be reading these books to the class.

These reports are due the first week of May.

The children have already written notes from books form our classroom and by going to the National Geographic web sight for kids and searched “animals”. 

March 21st

Every week the students get better at writing main ideas, supporting details and a conclusion, but they still can't do it without help.  We have been editing our "Twisted Fairy Tails" one on one.  It takes a while the finish product will be worth it. We have not conquered quarter after and quarter till on clocks yet. But we will keep working on them.  Our habitats are all most finished. We have some more plants to add and then we will start working on adding the animals.

March 15th

We added concluding statements to our main ideas and supporting details.  Many of the students are having a hard time finding the main idea.  We will keep working on it.  For math we started learning about time.  We have done o'clock and hale past.  Starting Monday we introduce quarter after and quarter too. This is a hard concept for many of the children. We have been working on writing letters or just persuasive essay to get the Leprechaun to come to our class.  A few of the students have painted the sky for their background for their habitats.  We are all hoping that the Leprechaun will come and visit us.

March 7th

WOW!!! Our Main Idea's and Supporting Detail were great this week.  There was a big improvement in their sentence structure, thinking process, and working on them all by themselves.  In math we took the place value test up to 1000's. There are only 3 students who did not pass with 100%, but give us a few more days and they will pass too.  We are almost ready to start making our habitats.  Thank You parents for bringing in their shoe boxes and salt dough.  We had a fun writing assignment--"What do you think Mr. Rencher does when no one is watching?"  I found out that the children jokingly think he gets a hair cut, watches his beta fish, buys new shoes, orders Cafe Rio, sushi, subway, pizza and lots of other foods.  He also spies on us with the cameras, counts money to see if he can buy soccer balls and basketballs, and tries to think of fun announcements.