Thursday, February 5, 2009

Newsletter from January 27, 2009

IMPORTANT DATES:
· Jan. 28~ 100th Day of School
· Feb. 6~ Book fair begins
· Feb. 9~ Family Math & Science Night/Book fair: 5-7 pm
· Feb. 13 & 16~ In service Day & Presidents’ Day: student holidays
·Feb. 27~ Family Movie Night: More info will go home soon!

January Terrific Kid: Congratulations to Jamison Carter for being chosen to represent our class! I’m proud of her for trying her best to be a good friend and student.

What: Long Range Building Plan
Who: All Interested Individuals
When and Where: February 23 @ 7:00 p.m. - West-Oak Auditorium
February 26 @ 7:00 p.m. - Tamassee-Salem High
March 2 @ 7:00 p.m. - Seneca High Auditorium
March 3 @ 7:00 p.m. - Walhalla High Auditorium
Why: The Office ofOperations for the School District of Oconee County will share the long range building plans for each area. Dr. Michael Thorsland will share Dr. Ken Stevenson’s long range facilities report, the survey results and field questions from attendees. Interested persons may attend any or all of the meetings.

Pre K and Kindergarten registration: Pre K Registration is set for March 3 for children who will be 4 years of age on or before September 1. Kindergarten Registration is set for March 2 - 6. If you know someone that is interested, they need to bring in birth certificate, social security card, immunization record and proof of address to the registration.

TAKE HOME READERS: Please be sure to read for at least 15 minutes every day! Since most of the THRs are not that long, please continue to read with personal and library books. Remember to log book titles on your Governor’s Reading Honor Roll form. Congratulations to Alisha Rankin and Ben Baker for turning in their forms already! I do expect 100% participation for this goal. If you can’t find your GRHR form, please list 20 titles on a sheet of paper.

HOMEWORK: Daily homework includes a math sheet, the review of reading and spelling our high frequency words, reviewing addition facts, and reading for 15 minutes. Please support your child by reading and explaining any directions, but allow them to do the work on their own. Use of pencil is preferred. If at any time you have questions or concerns about an assignment, please just jot a note on the homework. Thanks for your help!

Thank you for continuing to review all old high frequency words, concentrating on spelling! when, where, why, what, they, says, time, want, can, down, just, all, said, went, too, over, not, jump, run, and, in, is, it, can, help, got, at, eat, for, was, are, what, have, say, then, now, how, did, didn’t, do, don’t, wasn’t, can’t, it’s, that’s, I’ll, I’m

Language Arts: We are wrapping up our study of the author of The Snowy Day, Ezra Jack Keats. We have been reading his books for the past few weeks, studying characters, setting, problems and solutions of stories. We are reviewing contractions, compound words, and endings: -ed, -ing, -s in our reading… now we need to focus on incorporating them into our writing. We are continuing to work on writing multiple sentences on one topic, focusing on handwriting, spacing, spelling, proper use of capital letters and periods, exclamation points & question marks. We are using individual dictionaries!

Principal’s Writing Hall of Fame: Hooray for Shay Watkins & Alisha Rankin! I chose their Snowy Day Stories to be recognized on our news program. Both girls wrote stories with interesting details, many sentences on the same topic, they used capital letters, punctuation, spelling & spacing like we’ve been working on in class. Way to go, girls!

MATH: Our MATH MASTERS challenge is going so well! Congratulations to Astin Hodge and Andrew Dixon for mastering all of the addition facts, up to 10+10! Please continue reviewing all facts, especially doubles and “almost doubles,” like 6+6 and 6+7. We’ll continue working with pennies, nickels and dimes, adding & subtracting on the number line and number grid, and working with Frames and Arrows.