Week 26 Announcements

Parents, we only have 4 weeks until the Writing STAAR! With that in mind, our Reading block will only take up about 30-40 minutes of our day while we spend  more than an hour on writing skills and conventions each day. If something interesting happens when you are with your student, please have them write a narrative about it. If you get into an argument, have them try to persuade you using a Funky E expository format.

Writing:

This week, we will focus on words with silent letters, using apostrophes in position and contractions, as well as including I in a list of people (My mother and I). From this week forward, we will be writing two papers per week in class. The first half of this week, we will spend 2 days writing to the expository prompt: If you could have any class pet, what would it be and why. The narrative prompt for this week will be to write about a time when you were surprised.

Sight Words

Please remember that the sight words for the rest of the year will contain either prefixes or suffixes. This week, students will have sight words with the prefix: un- (which means not). To push your students even further, ask them to identify the ROOT word in the sentence.

Instructions: Please complete the following tasks with each sight word:

• write five times each
• write using stairstep spelling
• write each word in a sentence
• provide the meaning or definition for the word

exit	extend	exceed	explosion
explain	exercise	example	exhale
exclude

Reading

At this point in the year, our students have reviewed every major skill for reading. With the exception of a few mini-lessons from time to time, students will be completing spiral review activities, which means they will be asked to discuss and complete assignments on skills from different genres and texts. Two areas we need to improve upon are poetry and drama. Having students reading and interpreting poetry is huge, as well as being able to identify the role that certain characters play in screenplays and scripts. With the time for Reading being lowered each week, please make sure you are continuing to have students read at home.

Reading Logs

Parents, please make sure that you are checking students’ reading logs. Writing summaries of reading passages is a skill tested on STAAR. Students should write ONLY 4-5 sentences of what they’ve read, including the following important parts: a beginning, middle, end, conflict, and solution (if there is one). Students should only be writing a few sentences. The skill of summarizing is meant to recap what has happened while highlighting only the most important parts.

As always, if you need anything, please do not hesitate to call or text 2145173793

Week 25 Announcements (February 16-20)

Parents, students have worked very hard the last two weeks and taken three very important benchmarks. We only have 5 weeks until the Writing STAAR, which is on March 31st. Having your students writing at home for practice is extremely important.

Writing:

For the past 9 weeks, students have been practicing writing their expository writing. I am very proud of the amount of progress I’ve seen in those 9 weeks. This week, we will review how to write narratives. From this point forward, we will switch back and forth between narrative writing and expository writing, week by week. Students will be asked to write about a time when someone told them they did a good job!

Sight Words

Please remember that the sight words for the rest of the year will contain either prefixes or suffixes. This week, students will have sight words with the prefix: un- (which means not). To push your students even further, ask them to identify the ROOT word in the sentence.

Instructions: Please complete the following tasks with each sight word:

• write five times each
• write using stairstep spelling
• write each word in a sentence
• provide the meaning or definition for the word

unable	unused	unusual	unfriendly
unacceptable	unfair	unattractive	unbalanced
unaware	unfamiliar	unexpected	unlocked

Reading

This week in reading, students will be focusing on Main Idea in fiction. In order to figure out the main idea of a passage, students are asked to think about the conflicts in a story and how the main characters deal with those conflicts. It is important for students to understand why an event is important to the story as a whole.

Reading Logs

Parents, please make sure that you are checking students’ reading logs. Writing summaries of reading passages is a skill tested on STAAR. Students should write ONLY 4-5 sentences of what they’ve read, including the following important parts: a beginning, middle, end, conflict, and solution (if there is one). Students should only be writing a few sentences. The skill of summarizing is meant to recap what has happened while highlighting only the most important parts.

Week 24 Announcements (Writing Benchmark!)

Parents,

Last week students took two very important mock STAAR benchmarks--Math and Reading. This week, students will take the Writing benchmark on Wednesday.

The Week at a Glance!

Monday and Tuesday→ Students will be given the opportunity to track their reading scores from last week and see which skills they need to strengthen. For writing/revising and editing practice, students will review two passages on Revising and Editing, and we will discuss CUPS--a labeling strategy for revising and editing questions. In preparation for this week’s benchmark, talk with your students about the following topics: topic sentences, supporting details, concluding statements (final thought), MINTS, FANBOYS, rules of dialogue, etc. Students should be able to talk with you about each topic.

Wednesday→  Please remind students to only bring their lunch and two sharpened pencils on Wednesday, February 11th.

Thursday→  There will be a substitute in my class because all 4th grade teachers are required to use that day for grading the expository essay portion of the Revising and Editing Test.

Friday→ We will review our missed questions on the Revising and Editing, receive feedback on expository essays and celebrate Valentine’s Day.

Valentine’s Celebration: On Friday, February 13th, we will spend about 20-25 minutes of class celebrating Valentine’s day. Students will have the opportunity to exchange valentine’s cards and candy with other students. Parents (and students) are not required to provide anything for the class, but students are allowed to if they wish.  

We will resume homework as usual on February 16th, 2014.

As always, if you have any questions or comments, please text, call or email.