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Campus News

Lower Division NewsletterSeptember 11, 2009

Junior Kindergarten

Language Arts

Our theme will be My Family, My Community with a focus on neighbors. We will learn thenursery rhyme, The Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoeand Mary, Mary Quite Contrary. Wewill meet our new Alpha friends for the letter M and R. Our High Frequency Words (HFW)will continue to be I and See.In handwriting (HWT),we will practice making theletters F and E.

Social Studies

Our virtue for September is Goodness. We willcontinue to discuss the ways families are alike,different, and unique and talk about our neighborsand community.

Science

We will discuss external and internal body parts andlabel the different parts on our traced bodies.

Math

We will work on one-to-one correspondence withsets of objects. The children will count by ones, buildconcrete sets to five, and match a number to a set. They will also learn ordinal numbersfrom first to fifth.

Senior Kindergarten

Language Arts

Students will continue to review beginning sounds, ending sounds, rhyming words, and sightwords. Please go over all the sight wordsin your take home folder every night.Students will begin to locate and identifyletters and words all around the room.We have also started working on thefollowing word families: _at, -an, -am,and all. Students will review long andshort vowel patterns for the letterAa andbe introduced to the letter Ee. Inhandwriting, the students will continue tofocus on pencil grip, letter formation, andspacing. The children are really workinghard with their lower case letters.

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Journal writing will emphasize the trait of Ideas. Please feel free to review color words andnumber words to ten.Science

The focus will be on how apples grow and where they come from through beginning map

skills and the story of Johnny Appleseed.

Math

Calendar math will focus on number sense to 20, nonstandard units of measurement,months, days of the week, odd/even numbers, ABB/ABC patterns, number sense, problemsolving skills, and seasonal glyphs.

Virtues

Students will role play Goodness children will begin to show awareness of feelings ofothers.

Grade 1Language Arts

In the next two weeks our reading strategies will focus onsummarizing what we have read, identifying story elements (such asmain character, setting, beginning, middle, and end), andsequencing events. Our phonics and spelling skills will focus on finalconsonant blends ct, ft, nt, mp, if, and lk. Our writing will continue tofocus on writing complete sentences, applying the appropriate use ofcapitals and punctuation, making lists, and writing another classstory.Social Studies

We continue to study map skills and finish our Me on the Mapbooks. Students will have the opportunity to create a map of theirbedroom which will include a map key and symbols.

Science

We continue to monitor Septembers weather and record our findingson a weather calendar each day. Students will learn about the watercycle, how air travels, and temperature.

Math

We will work on writing addition and subtraction sentences, using tally mark to read a graph,and using pictographs and bar graphs. Please practice the following math vocabulary withyour child at home:

tally, pictograph, bar graph, tally chart, greater than, less than, and equal to

Addition Clue words: in all, sum, add, plus

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Grade 2

Thank you for coming to Parent Night. The childrenwere anxious to have you come to the room and lookaround. We are looking forward to a great school year.We appreciate your support and thank you for sharingyour children with us.

Language ArtsWe will continue our reading theme Silly Storiesthrough fiction and nonfiction selections. As we readthese selections we will predict/infer, identify cause andeffect, and distinguish between fantasy and realism.Our phonics and spelling skills focus will be on long

vowels a and i with the CVCe pattern and a review ofshort vowels. Our writing focus will be on developing acharacter sketch, adding details, writing dates, andstory writing. Our grammar focus will includeidentifying sentences, naming parts of sentences, and identifying action parts of sentences.

Social StudiesWe will continue to focus on the concept of a community, and compare old and newcommunities. We will begin our study of Native Americans.

Science

We have enjoyed our study of insects. We even made models of the insects we studied. Ourbutterfly larvae should arrive at anytime, and we are excited to be observing the upcomingtransformations as we study The Life Cycle of Butterflies. We will be watching them grow,shed their skin, transform into a chrysalis, and emerge as a Painted Lady butterfly. We willalso be working and studying insects in our Second Grade Butterfly Garden.

Math

We have been practicing ways to do addition facts: count on to add, use double facts, addten, make ten to add, and add three numbers. We will begin to focus on ways to dosubtraction facts: count back to subtract, subtract to compare, use addition to subtract, andlook at fact families. The students will continue to practice problem solving skills bychoosing a strategy to solve problems. Please practice basic addition math facts for quick

computation.

Grade 3

Language Arts

We continue to work on comprehension and fluency with activities like Word Wall, Guess theCovered Word, and making words. We are also learning to talk through the text by askingquestions and finding answers, making and checking predictions, retelling to make sure weunderstand, and deciphering unknown words by using context. Please be sure to have yourchild read, or read with your child, at least ten minutes each evening.

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Third grade is learning how towrite a friendly letter. We are alsousing adjectives to add lots ofinteresting detail to our writing.We are asking that each studentbring in a picture of something or

someone they love. They will usethat picture to write a descriptivepiece. The picture will be returnedunaltered. Thank you for helpingyour child to remember to bring inthe picture by Monday, September14th.

Social Studies

We continue to develop mappingskills that help students locatecontinents and countries. Students

will be challenged to usevocabulary related to continents, lines of longitude and latitude, and cardinal directionswhen explaining the geographic location of a particular place.

Science

Did you hear about the fertilizer for our garden? Within the next two weeks we will take ourtrip to Home Depot and plant our garden. It is definitely an exciting time! Our indoor classtime will be focused on planting, observing, and recording the growth of our Wisconsin FastSeeds.

Math

Place value is a challenging concept with which to begin the year, but third grade issuccessfully meeting the challenge. We have been working on steps and strategies to helpstudents work on word problems independently. Mrs. Hansens class will have their chaptertest on Wednesday, September 16th. A study guide went home today in the Friday Folder. Ithas a review of all concepts your child will need to know for the upcoming test. It is providedfor your convenience to help your childfeel confident he or she is ready. Thepages in the study guide do not need tobe turned in for grading. We will bemoving on to Chapter 2 which coverscomparing, ordering and roundingnumbers.

Grade 4

Language Arts

We have already begun typing ourpersonal narrative essays on the laptopcomputers. Students will learn to usespell check as an editing tool as theyrevise their writing. The students nowown the keys to writing success andwill use the 6 traits of writing as they refine their first published work. Were you impressed

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by their amazing Haiku poetry and illustrations on Parent Night? The students enjoyedtaking a moment to enjoy the wonderful miracles in nature right in our own beautiful gardenas they gained inspiration for their poetry. Our next endeavor for writing will be sentences.We will explore the types of sentences, imperatives, conjunctions, run-ons, and compoundsentences. In reading, we will be challenging the students to infer meaning from text andmake generalizations. In addition, we will be working on research strategies to include using

a dictionary, taking notes, outlining and summarizing.

Social Studies

We have begun our study of the United States! The students are learning to locate placeson a map using latitude and longitude coordinates. They will culminate their knowledge oflandforms with a cookie landform activity. Next, we will focus on our climate.

Science

We will continue our study of land and water as we explore streams and how they form andstudy run off and erosion. The students were very much engaged in their stream tableactivities as they witnessed the effects of rain in small and large amounts. Did you knowthat they actually created a model of the water cycle and were able to witness warm watervaporize and condense, then fall back to the land as precipitation? They are amazing!

Math

We are working with comparing and ordering money. Money is a difficult concept and we arespending ample time making sure that students have a firm foundation of understanding.We will continue with making change, problem solving and logical reasoning. The studentsdid a terrific job on their Chapter 1 tests!

DidYou

Know.

Third graders have begun getting their garden ready for the fall planting. We cant wait tosee what this harvest brings! We have never been disappointed with the riches that comefrom this garden.

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Upcoming Events..

September 15, 2009Picture taking dress uniforms

September 16, 2009Grade 3 assembly dress uniforms

September 18, 2009JK In-house field trip - Germaine the Germ Thing 9:00 a.m.

September 23, 2009Grade 2 hosts assembly dress uniforms 2:30 p.m.Giraffe Club candidates for office present speeches during Grade 2 assembly

September 24, 2009Day of Manners dress uniforms

JK field trip to McCormick Campus 8:30 a.m.Giraffe Club Officer elections

September 28, 2009No school Yom Kippur

October 2, 2009JK and SK bake a birthday cake with seniors

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October 8, 2009First quarter endsFounders Day assembly

October 9, 2009No classes Teachers Professional Day

JK had a great start to the year!