Sunday, October 3, 2010

OCTOBER 5, 2010

Oct 5, 2010
Dear Parents,
What a wonderful September we have had in Core English, and I am now offering a variety of homework packages to assist you at home and help students become successful in the English language. A special thank you to Mrs. Claudia Major for volunteering her time and putting together these packages.
Grade 1, 2: Sight word review. Enclosed in the folder you will find your child’s list of sight words. The highlighted words are the words your child successfully identified. Also in the folder you will find a printing worksheet with this weeks sight words. In the printing worksheet we are working on:
1. Practising the formation of the letters
2. Practising where the letters go on the line.
3. Learning our sight words. As your child is writing the word, have them read it.
Please continue to practice placing the letters in the correct space and to have a finger space between each word. If your child is having trouble, ask them to show you how we are practising spelling sight words at school. Here’s a prompt “Sit on our chairs for the letters a,c,e ......sit on the floor for the letters y, j....stand up with our hands above our heads for ...b,d,f.... Please return the folder every Tuesday so I can monitor their progress and add additional printing worksheets and update sight word progress.
Grade 3 and 4 Students have a handwriting practice book using the ‘Handwriting without Tears’ Program. I encourage students to work slowly at the cursive writing activities and to practise the letters they learn on separate sheets of paper. Please return the folder every Tuesday so I can monitor their progress.

Grade 5 and 6 students are asked to keep a journal which we will call their ‘Super Thought Spots.’ I have provided students with a book for them to record a minimum of 3 entries/ week. Students can write on anything they wish....fiction or non fiction. The idea is to get students writing about anything that is important to them. Thought spots are to be handed in on Tuesday’s for me to monitor their progress. One writing entry should be about someone they admire. We will be using this information next week to create poetry.

Classroom Update: In the classroom the students presented their wonderful Remembrance Day homework in both small and large groups. I was very impressed with the student's hard work. Posters will go on display shortly in the halls. We will choose the top 2 from each grade level to enter in the Legion's contest. We have been reading a variety of books in our Read Alouds. The Grade 1 and 2 students read Proud as a Peacock, Brave like a Lion by Jane Barclay. The grade 3, 4, 5, and 6’s read A Bear in War by Stephanie Innes . Be sure to ask the students about their reading. We are currently working on retelling these stories in our own words. We will continue to work on a theme of Peace for the next few weeks as Remembrance Day is coming soon. Ms. Spencer’s class examined the words to the song ‘One Tribe’ by the Black Eyed Peas and Ms. Gibson’s class, Ms. Bernardins class and Ms. Turgeon’s class sang a song called ‘This Little Sign of Peace’. Ms. Bell’s class and Mr. Mallette’s class have been reading the story of Sadako and a Thousand Paper Cranes by Eleanor Coerr. Be sure to ask these students to show you how to fold the paper cranes.
Watch out for the following coming activities in the next update:
General Lake Great Reading Challenge: I hope to have all the reading levels completely assessed next week and I am hoping to begin a reading challenge for all students.
Students will have the opportunity to enter a poetry contest. The maximum number of lines is 23. It is open to all students grades 2 and up.
Finally I would like to invite you to view my classroom blog at www.mslegaultsclassroom.blogspot.com. I hope to post all these letters as well as pertinent classroom information, homework assignments and samples of students work in the near future. Of course no student pictures will be posted. Thanks for your continued support.

Ms. Legault

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