wplan

Using Spelling City
We will be using Spelling City for our spelling tests. It is an online program. Occasionally the the sentences and words stated on the web site, http://www.spellingcity.com/genngenn/ , are hard to hear or understand. I have no way of knowing if the mistakes made during a test are due to inattention, misspelling, or misunderstanding. However these issues only occur occasionally. I find the advantages of using spellingcity.com far outweigh the disadvantages of only being able to take the test once on Friday. So I appreciate your understanding.
Sometimes students do better on the spelling test when they write the words rather than type them. I can easily accommodate this if your child needs to write the words. If you are noticing a difference between the spelling grades from last year or you think that it will help your child on the spelling test, feel free to write me a note. If I suspect your child may do better by writing the words, I may ask them to give it a try myself.

Literacy: Personal Narrative and Nonfiction
Our first unit in reading and writing will focus on fiction. We will be learning about becoming more mature readers by looking at what the author intends and working through more difficult words. In writing we will be working on person narrative stories. personal narrative stories are short, true stories the child writes about his/her own life.

Math: Basic Number Sense and Geometry
The first trimester we will study basic number sense and geometry. In this unit we will be looking at basic addition and subtraction and how we can pull numbers apart and represent them in different ways. We will also be working with skip counting (continued throughout the year) In geometry we focus on two dimensional and three dimensional shapes. We will also focus on identifying and dividing polygons to learn basic fractions.

Social Studies: Citizenship, Types of Communities, Basic Map Skills
First trimester we will study citizenship, types of communities related to rural, urban and suburban. We will be looking at maps and learning how maps are a flat representation of the Earth. We will learn to identify the continents and oceans on a map of the world as well as a little information about each.

Science: Plants and Energy
First trimester we will study about plants and how energy moves through living systems.

First Trimester
First trimester begins Sept. 6th and will end Dec. 6th. Report cards will be given out during the Parent/Teacher Conference. We will set up dates for this on during the fall curriculum night.

Homework
Starting on Oct. 2nd, your child will be fined 50 smiley bucks (part of the classroom economy) for each part of the homework that is missing.
To clarify the homework your child needs to be doing each night, there are four basic assignments.

Read for 15 minutes and discuss what was read (Each day your child must bring the take home book back to school if he/she checked one out, even if he/she will be checking it out again.),
Practice skip counting, 5 minutes,
Complete the homework sheet (usually a math sheet both sides must be completed if it is two sided),
Study the spelling words.

If your child forgets the spelling list, it can be accessed on http://www.spellingcity.com/genngenn/ .

Snack
We have snack each day in the afternoon. Please be aware of nut allergies when planning snack. I would like students to have fruits, vegetables, yogurt or cheese for snack. If your child is celebrating a birthday, he/she may bring in a special snack of his or her choice. It needs to be something that can be served individually, such as cupcakes, cookies etc. We will pass out the special snack and sing happy birthday. Please do not send birthday invitations into the classroom. I will send home a class directory and you may use it to send out invitations.

Allowance
One of the math units we cover late in the school year is money. However I want children to begin working with coins and learning about counting coins early. As part of our math work we have a classroom economy. The children earn a paycheck and pay rent and taxes! At the end of the month, we have an auction and the children may bid on items in the auction. You can help your child get an early start on identifying coins and counting them by giving your child a small allowance. An allowance of under a dollar will help your child learn to count change. If you already give your child an allowance, try to make sure he/she works with coins. The best learning occurs when children have the opportunity to experience what they are learning. Although we work with plastic coins in class, I find the students who have had the opportunity to work with real money usually recognize pictures of the coins quite easily and do very well on the money unit. (This is particularly important since the coins have changed, and we now have many more designs for coins in our currency.)

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