Upcoming Week 11/25-11/29

Every year in the month of December, I do a unit of study about Winter Holidays Around the World. I teach the kids about many different things that are celebrated during the winter time, other than Christmas (since they usually know about that!). This year, I'm asking for your help. Do you celebrate something other than Christmas during the winter? Would you be willing and able to come in to teach the kids about it? I think this would be much more meaningful to them, rather than me standing up there and telling them information about these other holidays. You could bring in artifacts, foods, clothes, books or stories, and any other ideas you have. Some holidays I've taught them about in the past include Three Kings Day, Diwali, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Lucia Day, Chinese New Year, and Boxing Day, to name a few. I work hard to keep the religious aspect out of it, though we do talk about which religions celebrate, if it's a religious holiday. Please email me ASAP if you are able to help us with this. :) Thank you!

This week will mostly be spent finishing up learning from last week. Our literacy activities were stretched from last week into this one, so there will be no new spelling. We're also finishing up our math unit, with the Unit test on Tuesday. Read on for other important information.

Important Dates

• Thursday and Friday - No School - Thanksgiving Holiday
• Friday - Apple Cup - Go Huskies!

Curriculum Coming Up

Reading

• Continued from last week

Writing

• Thanksgiving Acrostic Poem

Math

• Unit 1 Review and Test

Social Studies

• Geography of Different Communities
• Physical Features
• Climate
• Natural Resources

However or if you celebrate this week, I hope you enjoy the time off with family and loved ones. When we come back after the weekend, it'll be December! I am in complete shock that time is flying by so quickly! Cheers to you and yours!

Upcoming Week 11/18-11/22

For just a four day week, last week felt longer than normal. We took STAR reading and math tests last week. Hopefully your student brought home his or her scores on them. Overall, the kids did great on the assessments and almost everyone made progress in both areas. Our literacy this week will span over the course of this week and the next, due to the Thanksgiving holiday. Here's what's coming up.

Important Dates:

• Thursday - PTA meeting in the Eastgate library
• November 28-29 - No School - Thanksgiving holiday break

Curriculum Coming Up:

Reading

• Conclusions
• Using Commas
• Silent letters kn, wr
• Unexpected Consonant Spellings

Writing

• Publishing Character Analysis
• Continue learning about paragraphs

Math

• Building Fluency with 5s, 2s, 10s, 9s, 3s, 4s, 1 and 0
• Multiply and Divide with 1 and 0
• Solve and Create Word Problems

      *Note - Please help your student practice multiplication facts often - every day is best.

Social Studies

• Scale
• Cardinal Directions
• Finding Landmarks on a US map

Hope you are having a wonderful weekend. Time is going by so quickly and I really want it to slow down so I can enjoy the kiddos! They are so great and I just adore them! 

Upcoming Week 11/12-11/15

I hope you've had a restful and relaxing long weekend and took a quick minute today to think about why we had the day off. I especially thought about my cousins, Stuart and Michael, who are currently serving in the Army. Read on for what's happening during this short week.

Important Dates:

• Tuesday - Picture retakes AND class picture: If you're getting retakes, please send back the original pictures on Tuesday.
• Throughout the Week - Green Genius challenge in the cafeteria

Curriculum Coming Up

Reading

• STAR reading test this week
• Independent reading and book clubs

Writing

• Character Analysis Essays
• What is a paragraph?

Math

• Multiplication and Area
• Multiply and Divide with 4
• Building fluency with 5s, 2s, 10s, 9s, 3s, and 4s

Social Studies

• Where in the World is our Community
• Countries
• States

That's it for this week. Enjoy the Seahawk game tonight - here's to hoping we can hand the 49ers their first loss of the season!

Upcoming Week 11/4-11/8

This week was a high energy one, probably because of all the Halloween excitement for those who celebrate. We had a great time on Thursday at our Fall Party - huge thanks to Kristianna and Kelly, who planned it, and also to all the parents and other family and friends who were able to join us. The kids were happily engaged the entire time, and I told several people that it was the calmest party I've had in 19 years of teaching! Your kids are awesome, and so are you! Here's what's coming up this week.

Important Dates:

• Sunday - Daylight Saving Time ends - turn back the clocks one hour
• Tuesday - Election Day
• Thursday - Veteran's Day/Virtues Assembly, 9:20 in the cafeteria
• Next Monday (11/11) - No School, Veteran's Day

Curriculum Coming Up:

Reading

• Text and Graphic Features
• Verb Tenses
• Three-letter clusters - scr, str, spr, thr

Writing

• Character Trait Essay

Math

• Multiply and Divide with 9
• Building Fluency with 5s, 2s, 10s, and 9s
• Multiply and Divide with 3
• Multiplication and Area

Social Studies

• Geography - Where in the World Do We Live
• Hemispheres
• Continents and Oceans
• Countries
• States

Like always, we'll be busy with lots of new learning and excitement this week. I hope you enjoyed the extra hour of sleep this weekend (although kids and pets definitely don't understand the time change...) and that your weekend ends exactly as you want it to. Go Hawks!

Upcoming Week 10/28-11/1

We have a full week, of both learning and fun stuff, coming up. Read on for more details. :)

Important Dates:

• Thursday - Harvest Party - 12-1:30. Please click here to sign up to contribute something for our party. Huge thanks to Kristianna and Kelly for organizing everything!

Curriculum Coming Up:

Reading

• Sequence of Events
• What is a Verb?
• Words with the VCV pattern
• More short and long vowels

Writing

• Publishing Stone Fox writing
• Descriptive Monster Writing

Math

• Multiply and Divide with 2 and Build Fluency with 2s
• Multiply and Divide with 10 and Build Fluency with 10s
• Multiply and Divide with 9 and Build Fluency with 9

Social Emotional Learning (SEL)

• Bullying Prevention

Science

• Engineering Design Challenge - Pumpkin Bandits

Hope you all stay warm and dry this weekend. I can't believe this is the last week of October! I've had the best time with your kids so far this year and I want time to slow down so I can enjoy every minute with them! Have a great one!

Upcoming Week 10/21-10/25

Whew! I'm glad we made it through that weird week of all those early release days! It was actually kind of nice to have a change in the routine, and we got to do something different during reading. Be sure to ask your kids about the book Stone Fox. We read the entire thing this week, and we had some incredibly good discussions about very important topics throughout. It was so great. Of course, the week was capped off with our annual Walkathon and Bite of Eastgate on Friday night. Thank you for all your support with these two events. Here's a look into the week ahead.

Important Dates:

• Tuesday - Mrs. Pelto and Ms. Colon in to observe our class.
• Wednesday - Unity Day - Wear orange!

Curriculum Coming Up:

Reading - back to Journeys!

• Cause and Effect
• Plural nouns with -s and -es
• Long i spelled i, ie, igh
• Long i spellings

Writing

• Writing about Stone Fox

Math

• Multiply with 5 (practice 5s at home!)
• Multiplication as Equal Groups
• Multiplication and Arrays
• The Meaning of Division

Science

• Engineering Design Challenge
• Building a Levee to Stop a Flood

That's the big stuff for this week. Stay tuned for more information about our fall costume party on the 31st. And as always, Go Hawks!

Upcoming Week 10/14-10/18

This week will be an interesting one, with Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday being half days and two annual Eastgate traditions on Friday. The Walkathon and the Bite of Eastgate begin at 5:30 on Friday evening. We'll be finishing up our weekly tasks (spelling test, etc.) on Monday and then we'll do some whole class literacy activities together for the remainder of the week. There is no new spelling this week. Conferences also begin this week. I'm so excited to have time with each of you and I'm looking forward to our conversations. Read on for more information on what's to come.

Important Dates:

• Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday - early release at 1:20
• Thursday - PTA meeting
• Friday - Eastgate Walkathon and Bite of Eastgate, beginning at 5:30

Curriculum Coming Up:

Reading

• No Journeys Curriculum this week
• Whole class reading of Stone Fox with writing activity to follow

Writing

• Continuing to work on final drafts of personal narratives

Math

• Multistep addition and subtraction word problems
• Unit review and test

Science

• Evaporation
• Condensation

Again, I can't wait to see you at your conference this week. If you have yet to sign up, please use the link on the blog post about conferences to do so. I hope you had a wonderful weekend - yay for those Seahawks!