September 28, 2011

We had a wonderful turnout for our St. Paul Music Academy Open House.  Several families stopped by during the day on that Thursday, because they were unable to attend that evening.  (How cool is that!) Thank you for your caring and concern and your help with respect to your child’s education. Feel free to visit our classroom at any time to look in on how your student is doing in school. You are The First Teachers and I welcome your wisdom and special knowledge about your student’s learning styles and ability. Together we can help your student have an excellent year of growth.

We are presently learning how to use polite talk.  All of our language and actions should be respectful and show that we are educated young ladies and gentlemen.  We had a few incidents where students felt harassed.  If your child is having a problem with others speaking disrespectfully or cruelly to him or her, please contact me so that I can work things out and restore a respectful educational relationship between/among the parties involved.

We are right on track with our Everyday Math pacing.  This Friday we will be having an assessment on the Unit One skills.  I will be going over the information included on the test with the students on Thursday. Please encourage your student to study his or her class notes and look over the SRB (Student Reference Book) and the MJ (Math Journal pages 1-1 through 1-13).

In reading our Reader’s Workshop focus lessons are about making connections to the text that we are reading.  There are text to text connections when we think about another book that is like the book that we are reading.  Text to self connections are made when we are reminded about something in our own life as we are reading a book. And there are text to world connections made when we are reminded of something we have read in the newspaper or seen on the news as we read our book.  All of these strategies help your student to better understand and remember what he or she may be reading.

We are also talking about conflict.  Ask your student what conflict is taking place in the book that she or he is reading. (We are using this set of conflicts: person vs person, person vs nature, person vs society, and person vs self.  Talking with your student about her or his nightly reading will certainly create that awareness that reading is soooooooooo important!

Thanks so much for all that you do.

Together we can all succeed!

Michelle ; )