*MAP Assessments will take place this week at 11:30 AM on Tuesday and Tuesday. They will be one assessment tool we use this year in the areas of reading and math! We will talk
2. Fall Conferences: I have 18 families signed up for a fall conference time. I will compile this list as well as remaining available time slots and email out sometime this week.
3. Letters: At curriculum night, I asked parents to write a letter to their child that our students will open at the END of the year :) Last year kids were very touched and really enjoyed these letters--and also driven crazy by having to wait all year! I will collect letters and hold on to them in the classroom. I also have envelopes and stationary available, however, you are welcome to create your letter at home and send it in your kid's orange folder!
4. Reading: I have finished beginning of year reading assessments and set goals and identified strengths for each of our readers. We will now begin diving deeper in to our reading content this year as we finish up our introductory "Building a Reading Life" unit. Students will be working in small skill building groups, as well, to work on identified goals. I will send reading reports home (my goal is by next week) so that you will have this reading information available to you!
5. Math: We are neck deep our first math unit of the year! Our Common Core Math Standards studied thus far have been:
1. Use place value understanding to round whole numbers to the nearest 10 or 100.
2. Fluently add and subtract within 1000 using strategies and algorithms based on place value, properties of operations, and/or the relationship between addition and subtraction.
3. Solve real world and mathematical problems involving perimeters of polygons, including finding the perimeter given the side lengths, finding an unknown side length, and exhibiting rectangles with the same perimeter and different areas or with the same area and different perimeters.
6. Addition and Subtraction Automaticity:
Research shows that excellent automaticity of addition and subtaction facts (within 20) should be the ability to answer 28 facts correctly in one minute! The ability to quickly recall these facts without thinking will assist students in math fluency throughout their life. After assessing our class- we found we need some automaticity work (ESPECIALLY with subtraction facts). Your kids may share with you that I took the test while working on Sunday, and found that I have excellent automaticity with addition, however, was only able to do 21 subtraction problems in one minute! I have committed to improving my subtraction automaticity this year alongside the kids :)
Ideas for practice: Regular old Flashcards (dollar store!), online math games, card games (such as traditional "War" with the modification of adding or subtracting the cards each turn)
7. Business Items:
-Make sure you have returned your field trip permission form for our October 16th King Tut Exhibit adventure!
-Please return the pink student information forms signed and corrected as needed.
-Picture Day is Thursday!
-Send in a letter for your child (as described above in #3) if you haven't already done so