The Week Ahead 9/8-9/12


The first week of school was terrific! We accomplished my three main goals for the week, which were to (1) get to know each other, (2) make sure each student understands the classroom expectations, and (3) get some baseline data on student present levels in reading, writing, spelling, and math. I am hoping to finish collecting the baseline data next week as well as begin with some of the curriculum.

The best way that I know how to improve student performance in reading is to have them read. In an effort to encourage students to read, they will be bringing home a Weekly Reading Log beginning this Monday. These will be sent home each Monday, and are due the following Monday. The current expectation is that students read at least 30 minutes on four separate days within a seven day span. After the students have completed their reading they will write a brief summary to demonstrate comprehension of what they read that day. This week in class we talked about how there are three different types of books. There are (1) too easy books, (2) too hard books, and (3) just right books. In order for the time that a student spends reading to be beneficial for them, they should be reading just right books. One strategy we learned to use to help determine if a book is too hard, is to read a page, and each time you come to a word you don't understand, put up a finger. If you put up five or more fingers or the book is hard for you to understand, it is probably too hard.

Our first writing unit will be focusing on narrative writing, specifically realistic fiction. Last week students completed an on-demand assessment so I could get an idea of their current narrative writing abilities. They had 45 minutes to write me the best narrative story they could. At the end of the writing unit students will do the same on-demand assessment and we will get to see the growth that they make over the course of the unit. This week students will complete another writing sample in which they have three prompts to choose from and they go through the steps of planning, drafting, revising, and editing. This will give me a chance to see how they work through the writing process. The plan is to begin the narrative writing unit after we complete the writing sample, I'm hoping it will be sometime at the end of the upcoming week.

In addition to the on-demand writing assessment from last week, students took three spelling assessments, so I could create spelling groups. Look for a spelling packet to come home sometime in the upcoming week. I will send an email describing the expectations on the night the packet comes home.

In math students have been working on two packets. One covers the concepts from the 3rd grade standards and the other covers the concepts from the 4th grade standards. These packets will give me a good idea of the strengths and weaknesses of each child in relation to the math concepts they will be expected to know by the end of the year. I am hoping to have the math packets completed early in the week so we can begin the math curriculum near the middle of the week.

As you can see, we had a very busy first week of school! One reason I am incredibly excited about this group is that we accomplished so much last week, but we also were able to have lots of fun. I'm looking forward to working with this great group of children this year!

 Upcoming Dates

  • Monday, September 8th - Weekly Reading Log coming home
  • Thursday, September 11th - 6:30 pm Back to School Night
  • Friday, September 12th - 9:00 am Volunteer Orientation
  • Tuesday, September 30th - Track Trot
  • Thursday, October 2nd - Track Trot (Rain Date)


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