September 1 - September 5

Please remember that we will not have school on Monday in celebration of Labor Day. Almost everyone knows their lunch number!  And everyone came in from recess on time this week!  We are still having problems with students not bringing their homework folders to school each day. We also had a few hiccups with homework this week.  Only 40% of DLI students turned their homework packet in today, and only 40% met their reading goal for the week.  Those are very disappointing numbers.  The homework packet is always due on the last day of the week (usually it is Friday, but not always).  To meet their reading goal (read their take-home book for 20 minutes a night for five nights), they must read their book and then show me their signed book list in the morning.  When they show it to me, I check it off and put a tally by their name.  If they have five tallies at the end of the week, they have met their reading goal (during short weeks, they may have fewer tallies).  I hope this helps to clarify.  If you still have questions, please do not hesitate to contact one of us. Here is what we will be working on in the English side this week:

• take-home book reading goal = 80 minutes (4 nights of 20 minutes)
• art - we will finish our self-portraits on Tuesday morning
• making and identifying simple sentences: starts with a capital, ends with punctuation, makes sense, contains a noun and a verb
• adjectives - What are they?  How do I use them?
• creating a class mission statement - What do we want to accomplish this year?
• comprehension strategy: back-up and reread (didn't get to this last week!)
• comprehension strategy: cross-checking
• social studies: choices and consequences
• Daily 5: continuing to increase our stamina for reading to self, continuing to practice our word work routine, and introducing our procedure for buddy reading
• math talk about 10

Here is what we will be working on in the Spanish side this week:

• math: fact families
• math: working with 6 and 7(bonds, composing/decomposing, counting by, etc)
• social studies: choices and consequences
• using complete sentences when they speak in Spanish
• math picture talk with numbers (showing the students a picture and talking about the groups and configuration of objects in the picture)
• comprehension strategy: back-up and reread (didn't get to this last week!)
• listening to songs, trying to sing along, and following along with the words on the screen ( the songs are Mi Gallito, Pollito Amarillito, and Pin Pon)