Room 10 Newsletter -- November
2009
Dates to Remember!
November 6 –
PTA Harvest Festival 7-8:30 PM
November 11 – No school. Veteran’s Day
holiday
November 12 – Picture re-take day
November 18 – Dictionary distribution day
November 25 - Early release, 11:15 a.m., Thanksgiving prep
November 26, 27 – No school, Thanksgiving break
November 30 – No school, non-student workday
Picture re-take
day Thursday, November 12, is picture re-take
day. This is for children who
- need their picture taken for the
first time because they were not here for the first picture day
this year,
- already had their picture taken the
first time but want to purchase pictures this time around so are
taking them again, or
- are having retakes (make sure they
bring their original pictures with them).
Free Dictionaries The local
Rotary Club donates free dictionaries every year to 3rd
graders. The club will be distributing the dictionaries to the
Briarcrest 3rd graders on Wednesday, November 18. These
are books for students to take home and keep.
November
curriculum plans
Language Arts
We’ll continue with guided reading, and we’ve added a
fluency activity in which pairs of students do repeated readings of
one-minute passages as their partners note the number of words read
correctly. This is a peer-monitoring and feedback system that keeps
students motivated and on task. Please continue to monitor your
child’s reading at home. We now have a colorful chart in the
classroom where students can keep track of how many Reading Counts
books they’ve read and passed tests on. (Ask your child how
many stars they’ve earned so far. They should try to earn at
least 10 points in this trimester.)
Reading Buddies
We’ll begin visiting our buddies in Room 2, Laurie
Murphy’s A.M. Kindergarten class, this month. Each
3rd grader will be assigned to a kindergartener, and the
older buddies will help their younger buddies with a variety of
activities, especially with reading stories.
Math This
month we’ll cover two topics: geometric shapes and fractions.
Students need to continue to practice their math facts (addition
and subtraction, and multiplication when they’re ready) at
home.
Science We’ve
begun a unit on the science of light. We are discussing how light
can refract (bend), reflect, and absorb. We are conducting
scientific experiments to test our predictions and record our
results. We are using the scientific method to guide our
experiments. This week students learned the terms translucent,
transparent, and opaque. They were to find items at home that had
these characteristics.
Social Studies This month, we’ll continue to explore
North American geography and map-reading. Please find opportunities
to use maps with your child, and point out where the sun comes up
and sets, reminding them of the associated directions east and
west.
Educational
technology We’ll continue to learn and practice
word processing skills. Students will learn to format text,
paragraphs, and whole documents.
Our classroom web
pages Check out the Links page for school-related
activities, games, and informative web sites.
http://learn.shorelineschools.org/briarcrest/ljohnson/index.php
Communication You can
reach us during the day at school by calling 206-368-4170 or
emailing us at our email addresses below or from the Contact The
Teacher page on our classroom home page. Note that we now have one
“group email address,” which sends email to both of
us.
Best regards,
Mrs. Norling and Ms. Johnson
Johnson.norling@shorelineschools.org
or individually:
Mrs. Norling
Jennifer.Norling@shorelineschools.org
Ms. Johnson
LindaJohnson@shorelineschools.org
