The Week of September 21, 2009

Dear Students and Parents:
~Tuesday, September 22nd = Early Dismissal - Prairieview 11:00
~Your student brought home a sheet today about a new activity , IMC LUNCH BUNCH! Take a look at the handout. It sounds like it could be a fun activity to try.
~Magazine Turn in = Tuesday & Friday!

HERE'S WHAT'S HAPPENING IN MISS TREFONAS'S CLASSROOM:

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SPELLING : Lesson 4 and word of the week.

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ENGLISH: We will be finishing Unit 1 "Sentences" this week. The test will be on Monday, September 28th. We will be doing a review in class prior to the test, however, your child should still be responsible and study at home. There are a lot of review pages at the end of each Unit in the textbook.

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READING: We are working on the reading strategy of summarizing. We are learning how to write cummulative summaries in 20 words or less.

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SCOOPer Reading: I am impressed with the book activities I have met with so far. Your child should have at least one book read and activity completed/turned in by the end of the month.

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SOCIAL STUDIES: We will be completing Chapter 4 this week. Your child will be getting a "How to Study" sheet and filling it out on Weds. Along with this sheet, I will have the students attach the notes, worksheets etc. that are being stored in their social studies pocket to the "How To Study" sheet . We even highlight important study information from these notes and sheets.

Hopefully, your child has been putting and keeping all the sheets in the social studies pocket. They have been reminded many times as each sheet has been done, graded and returned.

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SCIENCE: The Scientific Method is what we are focusing on this week.

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MATH for Miss Trefonas's class..... You should know from the newsletter I sent home that we are doing timed multiplication fact tests.

We will be estimating, multiplying by 1 digit numbers, and multiplying by 2 and 3 digit numbers.

I emphasize that your child needs to have their facts memorized.

Quiz over chapter 2, lessons 1 -3 will be given on Wednesday.

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The Week of September 29th!

Dear Students and Parents,

Thanks for taking the time to read this on-line newsletter! It sure helps you be informed!

MISS TREFONAS'S HOMEROOM:

Arrow/Tab Scholastic Book Order will be sent home on Tuesday. There are many great offers in each month's book order. This is optional. Buying books from these orders earns the classroom teacher bonus points to buy books and other classroom materials. Please send orders in an envelope with exact money or a check made out to SCHOLASTIC BOOKS.

This week's order will be due on Friday!

TICKETS!! Has your child told you about our classroom tickets that they can earn for positive behavior? I am asking for any parents who'd like to donate to my ticket prizes to send in "goodies" at any time. We need healthy individually wrapped snacks like cereal bars, fruit snacks, crackers, pretzels etc. Also, decorative pencils, prizes, stickers, and any other item you think would be fun for the kids to earn is GREATLY APPRECIATED!!!

THANKS!!!!

SOCIAL STUDIES: We are finishing Chapter 5 this week! The test will be on Tues. Oct. 7th!

Again, I am suggesting that reviewing for the test start as each lesson is finished.

I asked review questions from lessons 1-3 this past Thursday......ask your child if they were able to answer the question(s)! They even got tickets for correct answers! There were some students who obviously have studied and unfortunately some students who didn't know many of the answers.......

SCIENCE: Using science time to learn more about ELECTIONS! The students have a packet with 6 different election issues. There is background about each issue and each candidate's stance on them. The students have questions they have to answer about these issues. Lastly, they will be asking adults to read the issues and respond with their opinions.....BE READY!!!

The students will be getting a direction sheet on Monday about finding an appropriate quote from one of the presidential candidates that is needed for Friday, October 3rd.

Electoral College will be a big topic this week! We are doing a simulated activity with Miss Stetka's class about how the popular vote vs. the Electoral vote works in the election process!

MISS TREFONAS'S READING, ENGLISH, SPELLING CLASS:

TICKETS: Has your child told you about our tickets that they can earn for positive behavior? I am asking for any parents who'd like to donate to my ticket prizes that I welcome "goodies" at any time. We need HEALTHY individually wrapped snacks like pretzels, crackers, fruit snacks, cereal bars etc. Also, decorative pencils, prizes, stickers, etc....would be GREATLY APPRECIATED!!!!

SPELLING: Lesson 5 and word of the week!

ENGLISH: Unit 5 Capitalization & Punctuation - Proper nouns and adjectives and commas will be discussed this week!

READING: We are applying the reading strategy of summarizing as we read TROUBLE RIVER. We are writing a cumulative summary of 20 words or less as we read. The students are doing this in a summary journal which also requires illustrations.

SCCOPER READING: Many great book discussions and activities!!! Mrs. Warkentien, our library assistant, has also been meeting with students with their book activities and is excited about the books being shared with her!

VOCAB CLUB: September's 10 words are due this week. Students need to also pronounce the words correctly.

MISS TREFONAS'S MATH CLASS:

MATH: Some students have completed their timed multiplication tests 0 - 12's. ! WOW!

Timed tests due date is Tuesday, October 7th. The deadline was extended since there are a couple of days I will not be here , and I don't have a sub give timed tests.

Chapter 6 Test is Thursday, October 2nd