Week of September 10th, 2012

Friday Homework
Book order forms went home today. You can continue to order the traditional way by sending in the money (cash or check) with the form if you like. I also sent home a letter with information about how you can do your ordering online. That way is much more efficient and Scholastic rewards you with a $5 coupon and the class with a $3 coupon for each order.  You can just click on the link above to get started.I'm looking forward to meeting with you all on Monday night. There will be no written homework on Monday in order to make the evening less of a hassle for you. The only homework will be reading in the Roald Dahl book.

Writing - Normally there is no written homework on the weekend for the first part of the year, but people who did not finish their draft of their paragraph will have to finish that this weekend.  The assignment was for each student to choose an event from his or her life and complete a WHO, WHAT, WHEN, WHERE, WHY list about it.

Who was there besides you?
What was the event you chose?
When did it occur? It can be general (3rd grade, summer when I was 5) or more specific (birth date, Christmas 2006).
Where did it happen?
Why did you choose this event to write about.

Then you have to take that list and turn it into a news story paragraph - something fun that shares the news about your event.

This was was begun in our Writer's Notebooks (the one with Snoopy on the cover).

Reading homework - spend at least half an hour reading your Roald Dahl book over the weekend.
Reflex Math - any time. Build those points!!!

Wordly Wise - Test on Lesson 1 will be Thursday, September 20th. (Note - the Wordly Wise tests will be about every two weeks until the children get the hang of them.)




REMINDER - Lunchroom fee is due tomorrow.

Thursday Homework

Read for 20 minutes in your Roald Dahl book.
After you read, write a letter to Roald Dahl (in your Reading Journal) telling him your thoughts about what you have read. You can ask questions, tell what you like, what you don't like. Mention anything that confuses you or words you don't know. Don't forget to wish him what would be his 96th birthday!

Science - Do an observation of anything in your house, garden, school (basically anything you see that interests you). Do it the way we did the peach observation remembering to do qualitative and quantitative observations.

Wordly Wise - Exercises 1 B and C.

Math - sheet.  The sheet should be a review but if there is anything you don't know (or didn't learn) try your best and circle the number.





Wednesday Homework

Reminders:
A) Lunchroom fees are due by Friday.
B) The youngest child in each family received the Walk-A-Thon papers. If your family did not receive the papers, please let me know.

Read for 20 minutes in your Roald Dahl book. (The one you chose today.) Record your reading on the Roald Dahl reading log. That means write the pages you read (ex. 4 - 24), your comments and check the last column. You can write post-it notes like you did last night. Certainly you should do a note for any word you don't know. Follow the formula we used in class:
Write the sentence and underline or circle the word.
Write a ?
Figure out what you think the word means based on the sentences around it.

2.  Reflex Math

3. Religion Book pages 12, 13 and 14.





Don't worry about using the Reading Log tonight. Since this is a mix of reading and writing about reading, it's a bit confusing. We'll start with the log tomorrow and I'll explain it better to the students.


Tuesday Homework -

1. Read for at least 15 minutes. Read your assigned chapter of James and the Giant Peach. (Reminder: the chapter matches your class number.) Do a close reading like we did with Chapter 1 in class. Use the post-it notes to write down things you notice about how Roald Dahl wrote the story. For example, you could note certain words he chose, expressions he used, any words you don't know, thoughts you had while reading. Anything like that to show you are thinking while you are reading. There is NO set number of notes That will vary chapter to chapter. Just do YOUR best work.

2.  Math - sheet
3.  Wordly Wise - Lesson 1 Exercise A (Finding Meanings)
4.  Religion - write a prayer for the people affected by the events of September 11, 2001. Write a good copy and illustrate your prayer. You can write it on loose leaf or type it or do it on construction paper. That's up to you.


ETA:

Yes - there are two journals. One for reading and one for writing.  The one that has the entry for "My Reading Life" is actually the Reading Journal (formerly known in my class as the RRJ).  We can just change the label if someone wrote in the wrong one because we haven't used the Writing Journal yet.


So, to clarify - we have the following notebooks:

Religion
Reading Journal
Writing Journal (Which I am renaming Writer's Notebook to avoid confusion.)
Math
Science
Social Studies
Word Study/Vocabulary
ELA Skills

I gave each child a school homework notebook.
Hope that helps. I'm sorry it's so confusing at the beginning. I'm sure it will all work out. 

Monday Homework -

1. In your Reading Journal, write what you remember from reading James and the Giant Peach last year.
 Read for at least 15 minutes. For tonight, that reading time should be going back through James and the Giant Peach and refreshing your memory about the story.

Thank you to those of you asking for more details on this:
I'm using the Roald Dahl log while we do our author study, but I told the children they are free to read anything else they want. I will provide an alternative reading log for those children who prefer to read something else at night. For tonight I specifically wanted them to go back through James and the Giant Peach. If they do other reading, they can always write it in their reading journal.



2.  Math - 2 sheets from Math Curse.  Do the problems in your Math notebook. Try to make up similar problems about our class or your family.

3. Think about what resolutions you can make to have the best school year ever. Write out your "New Year's Resolutions" on paper and decorate.  I will collect and hold them and we'll review them in January to check our progress.