Dear Parents,
Here we are at the end of the second quarter of school. It is hard to believe that the year is about half over. All the children have shown gains since the beginning of the year that is exciting to see. It is always around this time of year that the children move from being second graders to truly being third graders. Their confidence and skill begin to solidify and they start to take off as independent learners.
Even with a shortened week, we were able to pack in a lot of good learning. We have been working on the reading strategy of inferring. We had great fun reading a couple of books by Eve Bunting and Chris Van Allsburg. We are now moving into journal writing and students are composing letters with me in the classroom. In about two weeks, this process will become a homework assignment. I will be sending a letter about the journal writing process in the coming weeks. Please know that this is a hands-off assignment for all parents. As always, you can encourage your children to do their best work, but their actual letters should be 100% their work. Again, look for this notice coming home soon.
In math, we have started our multiplication unit and we worked with arrays to understand how these models represent the various facts. We will be moving onto the actual facts and continue taking drills to promote fluency and accuracy. Please be sure that your child is practicing his or her facts for at least 10 minutes per night. I sent home a letter regarding this process in last week’s Friday Folder. Information is also posted on our classroom blog.
In other content areas, we concluded our unit on Ancient Greece and will travel to Ancient Rome starting next week. We have finished our ecosystem unit in science and are now looking at food chains and food webs. We will likely have an in class project related to this science unit next week or soon after. Look for that notice also coming home soon.
As you know, the children will be swimming at the new Yorktown pool beginning on Wednesday the 25th. Each child will need a suit and towel in a separate bag to take to the pool with them. Some children do prefer to wear their suits under their clothes as they come to school as we have swimming first thing. If your child chooses to do this please make sure there is underwear in their bag for them to change into before coming back to school. As the children will be coming back to school with wet heads, please be sure they have a hat or hood on their coat to cover up for the ride back to Tuckahoe. We are also in need of a couple more volunteers to help the girls in the locker room. As I mentioned last week this would entail meeting the bus at the pool at 9:45 to assist the girls in changing and getting onto the pool deck with their towels, and then again from about 10:45 to help them change back into their street clothes and make sure nothing is left behind in the locker room. If you can help with any part of our swimming week with this please let me know.
Below are a couple of important dates to put on your calendars:
Friday January 20th- Last day of 2nd Quarter
Monday January 23rd- Teacher Work Day- No School for Children
Wednesday January 25-Tuesday January 31- Swimming at Yorktown
Friday January 27- Sock Hop
As always, I appreciate your help and support. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me.
Sincerely,
Ms. Coffman
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