A Look Back and Ahead

February 29, 2008

For Reading this last week we read “What Happened to Patrick’s Dinosaurs?” We worked with predicting, cause/effect, fact and opinion, and comprehension skills. The next book is called “An Octopus is Amazing”. It is a non-fiction book about octopuses. We will be working on a non-fiction form of predicting (called a “KWL”), main idea/supporting details, summarization, and fact/opinion.

In Writing we have begun to round ideas up for writing a story. The students will be going through the process of plotting out the plot, writing a rough draft, editing the rough draft, peer editing, final editing (done by me), and writing a final piece. This is an on-going process that will span the rest of the year. However, for one of March’s reading month projects, the children will be filling a bare book with their story. They will have a chance to share their story to the elementary later on in the year (Young Author’s Night).

During Math we have been working on addition and subtraction (with regrouping) strategies. Please practice addition and subtraction with regrouping (carrying and borrowing) with your child. We will practice briefly before each Math lesson until, hopefully, everyone has it. We will be getting into simple multiplication and division next week. These will be taught using manipulatives and drawings to support the concepts behind both operations. We will not be getting into memorization of multiplication/division facts this yearJ.

We worked on our spelling lists this week. We should be ready for another test late next week or the following week. Again, I will try to put the test date on the homework sheet.

 School store will be changed back to Fridays. Mrs. Blevins will be in next Friday. If you would like your child to purchase school store items please send money with her/him. Keep in mind they may not get to spend it until the following week. Thank you for being flexible. 

Sincerely,

Ben Mauntler

Mr. Mauntler's Main Page for 2007-2008