Week 11 (October 20-25) Announcements

Parents,

I apologize for not sending home weekly announcements last week. One of my classes only saw me on Thursday and Friday, so I figured it wasn’t fair to require reading logs/sight word quizzes. I told the students to consider it their week off. Last week (and the beginning of this week), we are working on using commas in a series, commas with conjunctions, and commas with introductory clauses. Be sure to ask your students, “What is the function of a conjunction?” or “What is a fanboy?” See what they say! We’ve also been talking about making inferences in our reading. There are two things required to make an inference--see what your student says! This week, we will continue with commas and inferences. We plan to publish our stories of “A time you were in trouble” this week. Our last round of stories were great, but these will be even better. I am extremely proud of all of your students; they have been pushing themselves extremely far and are making great progress.

Sight Words

As writers, it is very important to vary our vocabulary as we write. As we get deeper into the world of writing and use dialogue, students should no longer be using pre-k words like told and said, and move towards these instead!

replied

responded  

muttered

mentioned

mumbled

whispered

shouted

yelled

exclaimed

whined

screamed

squawked

Raise the Rigor

As the year moves on, and we “raise the rigor” in Room 303, we will move sight word work out of the classroom and make it part of homework. In order for students to prepare for higher grades, it is important that they understand the importance of putting in extra hours of practice in order to be great.

Also, soon we will make writing one story per week a component of homework. More details on that to come!

Bridging the Gap

Like always, parents, if you ever need anything, please do not hesitate to call or text me at 214-517-3793. Remember to follow what’s happening on twitter @goingplaces303. Also, we have a classroom blog. Student work, updates and other info will be posted at http://goingplaceslife-school.blogspot.com.