This Week in Room 204 (Day 4-3)

Bee on a Black-Eyed Susan: The Guild - September, 2009

Please remember that Curriculum Night is this Thursday evening at 7:00 p.m. If you have more than one child at Clairlea, there will be two sessions with each teacher. Students are welcome to come, but it has been my experience that children become a little restless and want to talk to their friends during this information session. If your child/children are coming, I recommend they bring a book or some sketching to keep them occupied.

I am sending home Friday's Math quiz. Please sign it and return. Throughout the year, some marked class work and homework will go into student's duotangs and notebooks. Tests and larger projects and assignments will be marked and sent home to be signed. Thank you.

Congratulations to Aahil, Grace, Sibghat, Thomas, and Nicolas for answering last week's Question of the Week: Approximately how many cells does the average child have? These students independently learned that the range would be from 50 to 100 trillion cells. Wow!

They each earned themselves some peanut-free chocolate. Yipee!

Here's what we're working on this week:

Language

Writing:

- We will continue working on personal narrative essays. We will look at several examples of personal narratives (Michelle Kwan, Roald Dahl, and Anne Frank). I will share my own example with the class and students will begin planning his/her personal narrative using a graphic organizer.

- Due to the diverse learning styles and needs of students in our class, there are three spelling word groups. This week in spelling, students will learn new strategies to use when studying their word list. Students will be quizzed on last week's spelling words. Incorrect words will be be worked on this week and a new list of new words will be added this week as well.

- In grammar, we will be reviewing nouns, with special attention given to common and proper nouns. I am in the process of setting up Literacy Centres in our class. This week, I will be reviewing what activities they will be responsible for at each centre. Centres will likely begin next week.

Reading: Students will begin using their in-class Reading Response Journals. They will write me a personal letter each week telling me about their reading. (This is in addition to their Home Reading Journals). Students will also respond to our in-class read aloud book Rules.

Media: Students will bring in a media text from home and students will work together to categorize the pieces.

Math: Rounding whole numbers and decimal numbers and counting money. We will continue working on "math basics" as well. Because of the range of learning needs and levels in our class, I am considering sending home "math basics" duotangs that are differentiated to reflect the various ability levels. Working on computational math and problem solving at home is an excellent way to ensure your child gets extra one-on-one support.

Science: Reviewing the cell and continuing to learn about the skeleton.

Social Studies: The Municipal Government.

Health (link to Science): We will begin the Power 4 Bones program.

Homework: Math sheet (Rounding), Hunting for Common and Proper Nouns in Media Texts, and Home Reading Journal entry. Students must also bring in some sort of media text (product packaging, flyer, magazine, clothing with text printed on it, newspaper, print-off of an email, print-off of a logo or instructions from an on-line source, etc.). Be prepared to discuss your media text with your table group on Friday.

* Remember homework goes home on Monday and comes in on Friday. Homework completion was excellent last week. Keep up the great work.

*A note to students: Yes, we will be rocking out with School House Rocks this week. Here's a sneak preview: