SEPTEMBER 2, 2022

Our school year is off and running! It was an absolute pleasure meeting many of you at curriculum night last week. I hope you found it to be an informative and useful evening. Your involvement and support is greatly appreciated! Welcome to the first installment of our bi-monthly blog post! It is my goal to keep you informed and up-to-date about the learning that is taking place in the classroom, as well as making sure you know about important dates and and events.

Here are the targets we are currently / planning on working to master over the next couple of weeks:

Literacy

Our students are currently working on finding the theme of fictional stories and passages. This will lead to learning about how to summarize important events and noting the reactions and responses of important characters. We are also working on “quoting accurately” within a text which involves students supplying text support for their answers. We are greatly enjoying our shared reading book, Night of The Spadefoot Toads. Because some of the chapters are quite lengthy, students are being required to read portions at home. They are able to use their print copy of the text or read the story on their iPads. Students are welcome to use this reading towards their daily required reading of 20 minutes. Once we are finished with the book, students are expected to use their own self-selected books for at-home reading.

Writing

Our current instruction has involved “laying the groundwork” for students to plan and write an original narrative story. This week, we reviewed the different parts of a plot using the familiar storyline of The Lion King. As we progress through this instruction, students will compose original story with the goal of including an effectively written introduction, well-developed body paragraphs, and an effective conclusion.

Math

Our students are currently working on writing and evaluating numerical expressions with parentheses. The first few weeks have also involved getting used to our math routines. In fact, since September started yesterday, we also started our daily Number Corner routine.

Science

Instruction utilizing our TCI science curriculum is well underway! Our current focus is on understanding the makings of various ecosystems around the world. We’ve learned about how members of an ecosystem interact and depend on each other. Currently, we are also learning more specifically about the producers, consumers, and decomposers who make up our ecosystem. We have a very engaging science investigation to look forward to within this unit! Fortunately, our ecosystems unit in science ties nicely into the reading we are doing with the Night of the Spadefoot Toad book we are reading during our literacy block.

Upcoming Events

• Monday, September 5 - No School (Labor Day)

• Friday, September 16 - Ivy Hall Fun Run (more details to come)

• Tuesday, September 20 - Early Release (Dismissal @ 2:05 PM)

• Monday, September 26 - No School (District Holiday)

Friendly Reminders

• Please remind your student to charge his/her iPad and Logitech Crayon every night

• Please remember to send your student with a healthy snack - nothing feeds the brain like a healthy snack!

• Please continue to have your student practice their multiplication facts up to 12