Sieracki Sentinel- December 10th, 2009 PARENT NEWS: Vaughan Elementary Mission Statement Our mission at Vaughan Elementary School is to work as a community to meet the diverse learning needs of students in order to prepare them for success in a global economy. Our class winter celebration will be on Wednesday, December 16th from 1-2 p.m. All parents are welcome to attend. Mrs. Summers is organizing our activities. Please send her an e-mail letting her know if you will be available to help with our day. I know the children love to see their parents at school. Next Friday, December 18th we will be having a book exchange in our classroom. Please have your child bring a new chapter book wrapped to school. The book should cost around $5.00. We are going to trade within the entire classroom so the book does not necessarily need to be gender specific. This is an optional activity. Please fill out the form stating whether of not your child will be participating. This form will be in your child's agenda tomorrow and can be returned on Monday. Thanks so much! Class Needs * Clorox Clean-Up Wipes * Electric Pencil Sharpener * Extra Snacks for the snack bin Reminders: *** Please help your child to remember to wear to bring gym shoes on P.E. days. They are unable to participate in gym class if they do not have the proper shoe attire. ** Reading logs are due Monday morning. Please look over your child's reading summary on Sunday nights prior to signing their reading log. Each child should be writing 3 good sentences summarizing what they have read each evening. They should also be filling out all the information needed for each day. Since we have studied elapsed time, I have asked the children to write their minutes read each evening to the left of the column. We have started our competition within our room of minutes read each week. The minutes will be combined together each week and at the end of the quarter we will have some overall super readers. Each week we will have our " Super Reader" for the week listed in our newsletter in addition to the child with the most improvement of their minutes read. :-) Reading minutes are being totaled each week. Our Rockin' Reader with the most minutes read for the week is Eastyn. Our most improved reader is Dustin. Way to go guys! Keep it up. Keep reading everyone!!!!!!!!! Academics: Our Schedule: 7:15-7:50: Unpack and begin morning work. 7:50-8:20: Announcements and Daily Math RAP 8:20-9:20: Math 9:20-10:00: Reading Workshop 10:50-11:30: Spelling and Grammar 11:33-12:03: Lunch 12:03-12:10: Check over Morning Work 12:10-12:30: Recess and Study Hall 12:30-1:15: Math Enrichment(Monday, Wednesday, Friday) Content ( Tuesday/Thursday) 1:15-2:00: Writer's Workshop 2:00-2:10: Pack-up and dismissal ** Content is also being incorporated into reading. Next week at a glance: Reading:E.Q.: How can read and comprehend fictional text? We will be reading picture books that have cause and effect situations in addition to real life situations. How can I make judgements and infer to help me comprehend text? We will also be discussing questioning as we are reading, and how this strategy helps us as a great reader. During the week I have been administering DRA assessments. These are individual reading assessments that give each child's independent reading level. I will be sharing the information with you at conferences that are coming up the last week in January. Writing:E.Q.:How can I create a realistic short story? Students will work with using quotation marks to identify dialogue between characters. They will also learn the characteristics of a short story. We will be taking our post response to literature write on the 17th and 18th. English: Monday we will be taking our end of the quarter assessment. Each third grade classroom will be taking the test on Monday. The county has set the time and date for us to administer the tests. We will be continuing our study of possessive nouns both plural and singular. Spelling: We will be practicing holiday words this week. Each day we will do a fun activity with the words we compile as a class on Monday. Math: Tuesday we will be taking our Post Assessment for the quarter. Each third grade class will be taking the assessment in the morning. E.Q.: How do I develop my understanding of geometric figures? We will be classifying and examining the properties of geometric figures. We will also be comparing and contrasting various geometric figures. Your child should be able to tell you about quadrilaterals. They should also be able to tell you the differences between quadrilaterals, triangles, and circles. Math Game: Thank you for practicing the math game nightly with your child. There have been significant gains since the evening games have been started. Students should be onto their multiplication facts. As you know they need to receive a 100% on each timed test before they can move onto the next level. Our multiplication crew now consists of Madison, Ryan, Ashley, Natasha, Will, Katie T., Mason, Katie M., and Logan. I hope that all the students will be in the crew before break. Please ask your child where he/she is in his/her memorization of facts. The math timed strips can be found in your child's Thursday folder. It is very important that the children practice every night. The children that have their facts memorized are having a significantly easier time completing our input/output problems, in addition to all computation activities. Thanks for all of your help. Science: How can I compare different types of soil? This is our new unit, in it we will discuss differences in soil, erosion, and weathering. Important Dates: Chick-Fil-A every Tuesday morning.$2.50 December 11th ~ Last Day of Math Compacting for this quarter. December 11th ~ Mystery Reader? Mrs. Harris December 14th ~ Language Arts Benchmark Test (County Date) December 15th ~ Math Post IMI/Benchmark Test (County Date) December 15th ~ Mrs. King December 16th ~ Class Party (1-2 p.m.) December 17th ~ Mystery Reader? Mrs. Wiggins December 18th ~ Mystery Reader? Mrs. Monroe December 18th ~ Spirit Day (Wear Vaughan Spirit Wear) December 18th ~ Last Day of School before Winter Break January 4th ~ Teacher's Back to school- Workday January 5th ~ Students back to school January 18th ~ No School Martin Luther King Jr. Day January 25-29th ~ Conference Week Have a great weekend! Mrs. Sieracki