This week in Room #107, 1/25/13

First - please note the important dates listed in Upcoming Events and the Quizzes and Tests section.

In Math we are starting to work with 2 and 3 digit multiplication more.  The students really need to remember to add those zeros as they start a new line.  We are also working on division.  Ask you child about Dad, Mom, Sister, Brother, Rover.  It is a great and fun way for them to remember all the steps.    

We keep working on our fast fact tests. Some of the students are not practicing 10 minutes a night. It is important that they do this so they can be successful in their math facts. It is important in the upcoming units on multiplication and division that they have them memorized. The mastering process for fast facts is addition, multiplication, division, and subtraction. The students who are putting in the 10 minutes a day with practicing them, seem to be doing quite well with the program and are flourishing.

We are back to working with our unit on Economics.  We have been exploring positive and negative incentives.  Please keep discussing the terms that we use in Economics. We have been learning about scarcity, supply, demand, opportunity costs, competition, market economy, consumers, producers, profit, price, and choice.

We finished with our Motion and Design unit. The BA scores will be coming home on Monday.       

In Language Arts - We are continuing to work on our mini research projects in writing and in the computer lab. We have been focusing on character traits in our reading workshop and also on the tools we can use to help comprehend the stories we are reading.

It is important that your child read daily. I have provided a new Reading Calendar for the month of January for recording their minutes.

The January Reading Calendar and the January Handwriting Packet are due on February 4th.

• In reading we are working reviewing the strategies we have learned over the years and are expanding on them. We are learning how to ask thick questions when we read. Thick questions can't be answered with just one or two words. They are deeper thinking questions.
• We are also exploring the different text features that we find in informational text. We are using this information in writing to create small research projects on our favorite animals.
• In writing we continue to work on grammar as well as writer's craft.
• The students will be having weekly spelling/grammar packets with test at the end of each week. Today is the first day for the packets. They are due every Friday and the children will be tested on 10 of the 20 words. This week's focus is on Prefixes.