Dear Parents and Guardians,

I hope you had a great Thanksgiving.  I enjoyed eating, and eating and eating! The next few weeks will be busy as we now are moving into the winter break. There will be no school for students on Friday, December 4th.

Here is what we will be working on this week:

LANGUAGE ARTS:

We will be reading <em>Teammates</em> in our OpenCourt readers. This biographical sketch based on  Jackie Robinson, the first African-American to play for a major league baseball team, teaches a lesson on how sticking by a friend isn't always easy. We will practice summarizing information as well as identifying the main ideas and supporting details in  text.

We have been setting goals for Accelerated Reading. These goals are based on the STAR Diagnostic Assessment given at the beginning of the year. This assessment is only used as a guide for determining a comfortable reading level for the student. I am sitting down with each student and setting a point  goal based on the reading grade level they scored on this assessment. These points should be reached by the end of the marking period. These goals are flexible and can be changed if the children find it to difficult to make the goals. I will send a copy of the STAR report home with the children this week.

I have included links to the accelerated reading list, (LIST AT END OF THIS BLOG ). If you click on these links, you will find accelerated reading books listed alphabetically by author, title or by grade level. This list will help you to support your child in making sure they are reading books that are just right. For example if based on the STAR Diagnostic Assessment your child could read between a 2.5-4.o reading level,  you could help  your child to select books within your child's interest level and reading level from this list. This is also a good way for the children to select their own books based on interest.  If you have any questions please send me a note or an email for further explanation.

MATH:

We will continue to work on Unit Three. We will learn more about the perimeter and area of objects. I sent practice multiplication speed test home before the holiday. I asked the children to ask you to copy these practice test so you can give your child the test as another way to help support their learning of the basic multiplication facts. I will send another copy home this week.

We will continue taking practice speed test in class as well as quizzes to support our learning.

HOMEWORK:

Home Link 3.5, 3.6, 3.7, 3.8, 3.9. Math Boxes as assigned.

SCIENCE:

We will complete observation sheets based on our experiment of putting our homemade thermometers filled with room temperature water into hot or cold water.

SOCIAL SCIENCE:

We will find answers in <em>Map Essentials</em> to questions in our Student Journals related to cardinal and intermediate directions.

<em>HAVE                        A                                                GREAT                                                            WEEK !</em>          

P. S.

Here are links for accelerated reading books by<a href="http://ray.cps.k12.il.us/arfiles/ar_title.htmhttp://ray.cps.k12.il.us/arfiles/ar_title.htm" target="_blank"> title,</a> <a href="http://ray.cps.k12.il.us/arfiles/ar_author.html" target="_blank">author</a> and <a href="http://ray.cps.k12.il.us/arfiles/ar_gradelevel.htm" target="_blank">grade level</a>.