Week 04/22/24

04/22/24 - Week 34 Classroom News!

Important Information: 

• 25 more school days left!! It's going fast! I know this is a super busy time for everyone and we are still trucking along. There are many fun days coming up too. Please remind your child of the school expectations to be respectful, responsible and safe. I have reminded them that we need to stay on track and focus to get our learning done so we can participate in all the fun activities to come!

• Homework packets for the week of 04/15 went home on 04/12. 

• We have almost 100% of field trip permission slips & money turned in. If you have not yet turned it in, please do so ASAP! If you need another copy of the slips and information please let me know! 

• Everyone did a fantastic job with their animal habitat projects! The creativity and knowledge shared was impressive. The students truly seemed to enjoy this project and I thank you for helping them with it! Well done! 

• Special thanks… You may or may not know, but several weeks ago I won the JFD “T” in PTA award for this academic year! Then all of the winners from each of the OHLSD buildings were submitted to Hamilton County’s Council of PTA, where I am proud to announce that I won the “T” in PTA for all of Oak Hills Local School District! I’m blessed and honored to have received this recognition. I am so grateful to work at JFD and be part of an amazing PTA! 

• FYI: The kids knew my birthday was coming up and many kept asking what day… so I put it on the communication log for their knowledge only. I’m joining the 40 club this week. 🙂

• ***We usually have the JFD Library every Tuesday!*** 

  • I am gathering dates for Track & Field day, Enrichment Day, Market Day, etc.

• Friday, April 26th - In house field trip! The Cincinnati Museum Center will be coming to JFD to have an interactive presentation with the first graders on “Rainforest Adventures” **PLEASE PACK LUNCHES. We will eat in our class or if it's nice outside. 

• Wednesday, May 8th - Out of school field trip to Madcap Field to see the performance The Wizard of Oz! *PLEASE PACK LUNCHES **As of 04/21/24 I have not yet selected the parent volunteers… BUT I will this week and inform everyone!**

• Friday, May 24th - Last day of school. 

This week in the classroom:

• Reading: 

  • In reading, our theme will be: Stories by Bob Graham: Exploring Everyday Life. The books this week include: The Silver Button, How to Heal a Broken Wing, “Let’s Get a Pup!” Said Kate, April & Esme Tooth Fairies. 

  • Our shared reading book: The Gingerbread Girl: A European Folktale, Three Billy Goats Gruff, A Tale from Norway.

  • High Frequency Focus Word: once,  open

(Note: our focus words for the week are also on our weekly spelling tests. You could practice these two words at home.)

• Phonics Skill: Unpredictable Vowel Teams: The 2 sounds for ea (long e like sea and short e like head) and 2 sounds of ow  (/ow/ like now and /o/ like snow)

  • With the vowel teams it is still developmentally appropriate for students to misuse the wrong vowel team in spelling words. We will still assess them, but I wouldn’t expect them to know all of the correct vowel teams with 100% accuracy in writing. Rather it is important for students to be able to decode and read words. Teaching the vowel teams will help them be able to be stronger readers with more accuracy.

• Writing: Realistic Fiction

  • Continue realistic fiction stories!

• Math: Chapter Chapter 11 Three Dimensional Geometry & Chapter 12 Two Dimensional Shapes (OUR LAST MATH CHAPTER!!)

  • Number Talks 

  • 11.5: 2 dimensional shapes on 3 dimensional shapes (Think if you set a 3 dimensional shape down and trace a flat side, what 2 dimensional shape would you make?) 

  • Assessments on 3 dimensional shapes

  • 12.1: Sort 2 dimensional shapes

• Science: 

  • This past week we went outside to observe and record living vs. nonliving things! 

Old News:

• Reminder for ORF Homework if needed: Here is a digital copy of the parent oral reading fluency homework letter. 

  • This homework assignment will only take ONE minute PER night to read, but it's imperative that it is done over the course of 4 days (not all in one day.) The goal is for kids to accurately read more words correctly each night in a faster time frame. If a child reads a word inaccurately or skips a word it is counted as an error. If a child adds in a word that is not in the story, you just ignore it. I suggest using a different colored pen or marker each day on the parent copy so that you can tell if your child is making the same errors or not. This will also help you count the correct number of words read accurately. At the end of each reading you will draw a line and mark it so you can see where they stopped (“M” Monday, “T” Tuesday, “W” Wednesday, “TH” Thursday.) If your child gets through the whole passage before time is out you can note “13 seconds left on timer” Etc. 

  • Since this needs to be done each night, feel free to KEEP their homework packet at home until it is due so it's not forgotten at school. If your child travels between houses, feel free to KEEP their homework packet in their backpack (but not in the binder) so they don’t leave it at school by mistake. The kids are doing an amazing job overall remembering to take their binders back and forth to school daily, so you may not need to worry about this and can continue to leave it in the binder.