Keeping up with the good work

This week has been an interesting week with the weather being what is was. I hope that this weekend we will have some sunshine. I know that for me it makes it hard to get out of bed in the mornings sometimes. Even though it is hard to get up, please try to make sure your child arrives on time. If your child is going to be absent, make sure to get an independent work study contract so our school does not lose funding for the day.
This week we have been continuing our personal narrative essays. The children are coming up with some really great stories that we are eventually going to publish. We just finished our fifth Wordly Wise. I can't believe that we are already one fourth finished with the book. The class is starting to recognize that these high level words are all around us. We finished our read aloud book Holes and watched part of the movie today for "Friday Free time."
This week in math we worked on subtraction with decimals. We also continued working on our "Nimble with Numbers" project. We made practice sheets that explained area and perimeter too. I was especially impressed with how artistic the students made the work. They were so well done that I will use them to teach my class next year!
If you still have not had a conference and would like to have one, I have been having conferences before school. Let me know if that is something that you are needing.

Student Conferences

I would like to thank all of the students and parents who came in for our conferences this week. I was impressed with how well each student was able to express what they were learning. If your child did not attend the meeting we still to go over with them together about what they are doing in class. The purpose of these conferences is to let the students demonstrate what they are doing in class. Our goal at Innovations is to empower students to take an active participant in their education. If you would like to meet me to discuss issues without your child present, we can talk on the phone or set up a time to meet before School on Thursdays. I am keeping that day open for office hours by appointment only.

Since we had half days this week we focused academically on language arts and math. We are beginning to draft and edit our autobiographical narrative. We have learned that good writers spend 85% prewriting. So far everyone has got of to a great start with their stories. I can't wait to publish these stories in a book complete with illustrations. If anyone knows of a great online publishing site please let me know.

In math we will be beginning our "Nimble with Numbers" project. In this project we will be continuing our personal connection with math while exploring key math vocabulary words. We are working daily on our basic math facts. If you child needs help in this area we will be using flash cards with the answer stated. For example
4x8=32 and 8x8=64. The facts are read aloud and the object becomes more a game of speed rather than memorization. It works really well if you would like to try it for just a minute a day.

October News

I would like to remind everyone that next week we will be having half days starting Tuesday for our goal setting conferences. Please double check with me about the times if can't remember when we were to meet. I will post the schedule on the wall so you can see it when you walk in. On Thursday night, we will be having our family night so you can get an idea of what is happening in the class and see all of the great work we have done. Next Friday there is not going to be any school because we are having a staff development day.

For our language arts we are using graphic organizers to help us with our autobiographical narratives. We are continuing with our power write and wordly wise as well. We have come up with some really clever stories so far. We have some very creative writers in class. I can't wait to see our published finished products. We are learning that authors need to spend most of the time in the "pre-write" phase of writing. This is the planning and preparing stage of writing.

In math I am pleased to announce that we have finished our mathematician projects. The work is displayed on the wall of our classroom if you want to see it. We are also learning how to add and subtract using decimals. I am also giving multiplication tests to make sure that we are mastering these basic skills too. If students miss problems we will be making flash cards and playing games to help learn them.