Monday, January 28, 2008

The Week of January 28, 2008

Dear Parents,
~We have had our first of two classroom spelling bees. Our next classroom spelling bee will be on Tuesday! The winners from our classroom go on to compete in the 5th grade spelling bee on Friday, Feb. 1st. The two winners from all of 5th grade will go on to compete in the Center Cass Spelling Bee on Friday, Feb. 8th!
~Our healthy snack supply is dwindling! If you can send in individually wrapped fruit snacks, Nutrigrain bars, cheese and crackers, or Goldfish crackers it would help replenish our supply!

HERE’S WHAT WE ARE UP TO THIS WEEK:

Spelling = Lesson 21 and “word of the week”

English = We are finishing our verb unit, finally! Due to the length of this unit and that we started it before the winter break, a study guide will be given for this test. It is highly recommended that the students use the textbook review pages to study too!
Unit 3 Verb test = Thursday!

Reading = SCOOPer Reading deadline is February 29th!
The students are allowed to meet with one book and activity per meeting…..
Is your child pacing themselves? Multiple book activities will not be accepted on the Feb. 29th!
ISAT skill practice = We will be using the ISAT workbooks to learn about cause of events, practice making inferences, drawing conclusions, and making generalizations. We will also review fact and opinion.

Social Studies = Lesson 3 of Chapter 8, “The Revolution Begins”
This is the last lesson of the chapter! Again, I have suggested to the students to begin reviewing learned material after each lesson instead of waiting until the test date is announced. Your child has note sheets from each lesson and graded work book pages. To begin preparing for this test, your child should be rereading the text, reviewing vocabulary, important people, and events.
THERE IS A LOT OF MATERIAL TO KNOW!!!!

Science = Human Body! Quiz on Monday over the 4 systems we have learned!
This week we will learn how our different body systems work together.

T.G.F.D. = Too Good For Drugs……This is week 7 of our 10 week program.
The children do not have a homework assignment this week.

Math = We are finishing Chapter 7 Geometry. The test has been announced to the students!
Chapter 7 test is scheduled for Thursday. Hopefully your child has started studying.

Keep warm during this frigid weather!
Miss Trefonas

Monday, January 21, 2008

The Week of January 21, 2008 !!

Dear Parents,
There is no school on Monday in observance of the Martin L. King, Jr. holiday.

Spelling Bee information....We will be having 2 classroom spelling bees and getting one finalist from each contest. The classroom spelling bees are on Thursday, January 24th and Tuesday. January 29th. The two finalists will then compete in the 5th grade spelling bee with the other 5th grade finalists. The two 5th grade finalists will then compete in the District 66 Spelling Bee on Friday, February 8th which will be held at Prairieview. There will be two finalists competing from each grade level from 3rd grade to 8th grade.
This week we are halfway through the second trimester. Have you checked your child's grades on-line? Progress Reports will be sent home only if your child has any grade(s) that are unsatisfactory which means a D or F.


HERE’S WHAT’S HAPPENING IN OUR CLASSROOM:

SPELLING: Lesson 20 and “word of the week”!

ENGLISH: We will be finishing Unit 3 verbs this week and testing the week of Jan.28th.

READING: SCOOPer Reading deadline for this trimester is Feb. 29th!

During reading time we are working on our persuasive writing! We have started writing our first draft of our three "body" paragraghs and will write our introduction and conclusion this week.
As we are writing, different persuasive pieces of writing are being shared to show the different writing traits that need to be included in their persuasive writing. The students will be editing and revising their original draft to include these traits. This will be an ongoing process throughout the week. It will definetly give a new meaning to the term "sloppy copy"!

SOCIAL STUDIES: Chapter 8 – Lesson 2 “The Colonists Rebel”
The events that we have learned about are the Boston Massacre, the Boston Tea Party, the Intolerable Acts, and the Continental Congress. We will be writing about each of these events for our next installment of our Patriot/Loyalist project. I highly recommend ongoing studying and reviewing of the information in this chapter. There’s a lot of people, events, and vocabulary.

SCIENCE: We are starting the HUMAN BODY! We begin by learning about our different body systems. After reading and notetaking, the students will be doing a word sort as a group activity. They will then generate a note sheet based on the word sort which will be used to study fo a quiz Monday, January 28th.

MATH: We will be doing some T-chart problems this week! This will help prepare the children for the ISAT tests. We will be learning about geometrical patterns, congruent figures, and similar figures. The Chapter 7 Geometry Test will be given the week of January 28th.

T.G.F.D. = This is week six of our ten week program. Remember to do the home activity with your child. A participation grade will be entered as a science grade after the ten weeks.

HAVE A GREAT WEEK!
MISS TREFONAS

Monday, January 14, 2008

The Week of January 14, 2008

Dear Parents,
Can you help??? Our classroom supply of healthy treats has dwindled. We are in need of individually wrapped crackers, fruit snacks, pretzels, Goldfish, cereal bars like Nutri-Grain, Quaker chocolate chip granola bars, etc. If you can donate something, it would be greatly appreciated!
Also, needed for the classroom.......electric pencil sharpeners! I have 2 and they are both on their "last leg". Again, your help is much appreciated!!!
Thanks to all of you who have been donating things throughout the year!

GEOSPACE is Tuesday. This is a heads on in-school field trip provided by the DuPage Children's Museum. The chilren will be creating a Geometric environment. When they bring home the completed diorama, take some time to have them explain what they designed. Their creativity is amazing!
Thanks to Mrs. Stahulak, Mrs. Balinski, and Mrs. Potdukhe for helping with this project!

Thanks to Mrs. Cohen, Mrs. Nuccio, and Mrs. Froats for chaperoning the fieldtrip to Naper Settlement.


HERE’S WHAT WE ARE UP TO THIS WEEK:

Spelling = Lesson 19 and “word of the week”

English = Unit 3 Verbs continued. This is a long chapter! We will have completed Lesson 8 by the end of the week.

Reading = SCOOPer Reading deadline is February 29th!
The students are allowed to meet with one book and activity per meeting…..
Is your child pacing themselves?

Persuasive reading/writing
...... We are reading Persuasive articles and comparing and contrasting reasons for and against different issues like having soda machines in schools, extending the school day, and wearing uniforms to school. The children will be choosing their own topic to write about and try to persuade a specific audience! Watch out, it might just be you!

Social Studies = Chapter 8 Lesson 2 "The Colonists Rebel" This includes the Boston Massacre, Committees of Correspondence, and Boston Tea Party. At the end of the week, we will be having a tea party! There is a lot of material in this chapter that the children will need to know for the test. I suggest getting a head start on studying by reviewing lessons 1 and 2 over the Martin Luther King holiday weekend. Rereading the chapter and reviewing notesheets is an excellent way to study!

Science = Flight & Rocketry…..pages 2-5 should be completed in their accordian books. This week we will continue to work on the project in class. The project will be due on Thursday.

T.G.F.D. = Too Good For Drugs……Week 5! Remember to complete the homework!

Math =
GEOMETRY! We will be using tangrams this week and classifying triangels and quadrilaterals. CHECKPOINT QUIZ = Thursday!

Stay warm and healthy!
Miss Trefonas

Monday, January 7, 2008

The Week of January 7th, 2008!!

Dear Parents,
Happy New Year! I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday. I am hoping 2008 will be a great year full of health and happiness.
Tuesday, January 8th we are going on our field trip to Naper Settlement. We will be eating lunch at Naper Settlement so a sack lunch including a drink needs to be packed. Also, it's important to dress according to Tuesday's weather because we do go outside to get from one place to another during this fieldtrip.

An important memo from the Prairieview office:

FORGOTTEN LUNCHES: Starting in January, 2008 students who do not have a lunch ticket or money will be able to borrow from the office providing there is not an outstanding balance due for lunch tickets. If your child forgets his/her hot lunch ticket or has used them all, he/she may bring $2.25 to school and purchase a ticket that day from the office staff. Students must have exact change to purchase a ticket; no change will be given. If a child has no lunch, no money and the parent cannot be contacted, he/she may borrow from school office, but only twice per trimester. Students will no longer be able to borrow lunch tickets from the lunchroom staff.

Here's What's Happening in our Classroom:

Spelling
= Lesson 17 is a review lesson. This means no pretest or word of the week for this week. Friday's test will be multiple choice format.


English
= continuing Unit 3 Verbs....Future Tense verbs and doing a project with verb tenses.
The project will include present, past, and future tense verbs.


Writing
= We will be starting Persuasive Writing activities towards the end of the week.


Reading
= Hopefully your child read and completed a book activity for Scooper Reading during our winter break. We will be doing reading skills from our ISAT practice books this week which will include summarizing and causes of events.


Social Studies
= Chapter 8 Lesson 1 We are starting a “point of view” activity based on Britain taxing the colonists. The project requires your child to tell how the patriots felt about certain events and how the loyalists felt about the same events. This will be told in first person, and typically students add their own "voice" to their writing when doing this activity.
This activity continues throughout Chapter 8.


Science
= Flight & Rocketry…..this week the children will receive directions for the end of the unit assessment which will be an “in class” project. We are doing this instead of a test!!!
Each day for the next 10 days, they will be getting a daily assignment on what to accomplish and may possibly have homework if it's not completed during class time.
The due date for this project will be Thursday, January 17th.


T.G.F.D. =
Friday is our fourth session with Deputy K. There will be a homework assignment given. T.G.F.D. assignments will be recorded for a science grade.


Math
= Chapter 7 Geometry....This week we learn about lines, angles and polygons.


Stay warm and healthy!


Miss Trefonas