Mrs. O'Connell's Newsletter 9/21

Hello Room 280 Families!

            I wanted to thank you for coming to Open House night. It was wonderful to meet all of you and hopefully you walked away feeling confident about our goals and expectations this year. I’m already thoroughly enjoying your children and thank you for sharing them with me!

            As mentioned, when the brain slows down and you reflect on the day, the little bits of information that were supposed to be mentioned, come to the front of the brain at about 4:30 in the morning! So, a couple of “add-ons” must be made via newsletter.  A letter was sent home the first week of school that included a password and user name for the Scholastic website. This allows you to access the Internet, view the order forms, and pay with a credit card on-line. The due date is posted, you place the order, and the shipment arrives here at Bell Top. Voila! No checks to send in. It’s neat, clean, and easy! I will still send the  “hard copy” order booklets home, but there is no need to send orders or money in. I can’t believe how easy they’ve made this process! Please understand that the more books that are ordered, the more points that are earned, then the more books I can add to the classroom. The children need more non-fiction books to choose from and the points that are earned will allow me to build this genre!  

            I was going to ask for Room Parent volunteers in this letter, but I’ve already had four wonderful moms offer. Of course if you would like to be part of this team, the group welcomes you with open arms! Ked Robinson, Dawn Lemire, Sue Blackburn, and Leigh Zwanka are our current victims…. I mean volunteers! Please send me a note if you’d like to join these lovely ladies.  

            Now on to the meat and potatoes of it all! Please remember that this is the official kick-off of the HW contract and Reading Log coming home each night along with the Writer’s Notebook. On Fridays, I will collect the HW contract, check them over, and place a sticker on it if all homework has been turned in on time that week. They’ll come home on Friday for you to keep! If there’s no sticker, then look for what items are circled. This would indicate which assignment(s) are still not in. Nightly signature of the contract will inform you if there’s anything missing before Friday anyway. If a child forgets their contract at home, then they will fill out that day’s assignments on an index card or piece of paper (just sign that).  The Reading Logs are separate and, as stated at Open House, play a very important role in your child’s reading grade.

So, just to review! A typical evening of homework could look like this:

                        1 math assignment

                        1“other” assignment (sometimes, not everyday)

                        15 minutes of reading for the Reading Log (if that’s how they’re breaking the total  minimum weekly reading time of 75 minutes)

                              10-15 minutes Writer’s Notebook (Remember- that has to travel back and forth every single day and goes home on the weekend to continue the writerly life).

            This week we are reading a great story called OPT: An Illusionary Tale. As we read this wild story, we’re going to focus on Sequence of Events. We’ll apply this skill to our personal reading as well. The spelling words are posted on our website. This week we’ll continue practicing friendly letter format. This time, instead of the tall tale Bell Top horror stories they wrote to you for Open House, they’ll be writing a letter to their future selves. This should be fascinating!

            Another really major topic I wanted to touch on this past Thursday evening was the Computer lab. The children will have keyboarding every Monday to learn the proper fingering for typing. We also will join Mrs. Martin on Tuesdays and Wednesdays to learn file management as well as researching skills. Please see the separate request form regarding personal heritage. This has a direct tie in to a project they will work on in the computer lab.

            Math world will have us comparing, ordering, and rounding numbers for part of the week and we’ll also work on collecting data to create a bar graph. Rounding can be quite challenging for some students. Sometimes it just takes more practice to really get this concept, but I’d like to recommend these website to practice at home.

From the Curriculum Web on Bell Top’s website: http://www.bbc.co.uk/skillswise/numbers/wholenumbers/whatarenumbers/rounding/quiz.shtml

In addition to this:

http://www.321know.com/est27ax2.htm

If you’d like to receive extra credit, please go to the website below, print the page or write the answers on a piece of paper, and send in by Friday the 25^th. These are challenging riddles to practice rounding.

http://www.rhlschool.com/math5n8.htm

            We began our study of world geography with the basics last week. The children will be responsible for memorizing the location of the seven continents and 4 main oceans. I’ve included a copy of the world map they’re using at school to begin studying well in advance of the test. The test will not be given this week! This week we will begin looking at the people, animals, climate, and plants of Mexico! We will also begin our first science topic that shows what simple machines are and how we use them everyday.

                  Please do not hesitate to call or send an email if you have any questions!

PLEASE READ THE NEXT PAGE AND RETURN BY WEDNESDAY!

THE LAST PAGE IS THE STUDY MAP OF THE WORLD.

FAMILY HERITAGE

I need your help! The children will begin a research project on a country. What country you may ask? The children need to know the country that most strongly reflects their family heritage and/or traditions. For example, I told the kids that I am 50% Sicilian and 50% “mutt” (this is said lovingly of course, but it includes a smattering of quite a few different nationalities). Being the country that was built on immigration allows us to embrace the many nationalities that create our melting pot. Please talk with your child and share with them what nationality most strongly reflects your heritage. This will be the country that they research in the library using on-line databases as well as our reference books. We will begin this project on Wednesday. Please write down the country that reflects your child’s nationality best on the line below.

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