Twelfth Day of School

In Writing today we made our second topic-brainstorming list. This time we made a list of people who would likely be characters in our personal narratives.

We had our fifth Violence Prevention Lesson.

Math Test Results

Of the 25 students taking the test, 21 students passed with an adjusted score of 10 or better. The modal average score was 14.

Tenth Day of School

We are on target to have our first Math test tomorrow if all goes as planned. Overall class test statistics will be briefly posted on the blog. Your child has a set of review pages.

Parent homework #3 is due tomorrow.

We will have our first Drama lesson with Ms. Jordahl tomorrow.

Tomorrow evening will be Back-to-School parent/teacher meeting.

We had our 4th Violence Prevention lesson today.

In P.E. we reviewed the rules for handball.

We continued with our Unit Writing Project.

Math Test

We will be taking our first Math test this week. Students will receive a review packet to take home on Monday. Math Talk question in packet should be discussed and answered in complete sentences. The test scoring procedure will be covered at Back-to-School Night on Tuesday.

Eighth Day of School

Our important concept for the day was the 3 elements of a (western) narrative:

• Character (the 'who'of the story)
• Setting (the 'where and when' of the story)
• Plot (the 'what and how') 

Typical CCCS Comprehension Reading Test questions will include:

1. Who are the main characters of the story?
2. What is the setting of the story?

Seventh Day of School

The correct (test accepted) answer for the '=' symbol question on the homework was:

This symbol means 'equal to' or 'the same as'.

Five students had a correct answer on their paper.Those not answering the question correctly had the opportunity to change their answer in class. The question will come up again in a testing situation.

Today we took our writing pre-assessment for our first Writing unit (personal narrative).

Reading readiness battery test scores will be ready for review on Thursday afternoon if any parents are interested to stop by for discussion after school.

Parent Assignment #3

The Memorable Moment

Over the course of the next few weeks, we will be working on the genre of personal narratives.

Your Task:

With input from your child, over the course of the next few days, construct a list of memorable events. These individual events should be about moments which occurred across a time span of approximately 20 minutes maximum in length. Each event should have an identifiable emotion (or two) attached to it (fear, happiness, surprise).

Examples of events which will not work:

• My Day at Disneyland
• Christmas Morning
• My Birthday Party
• The Winning Game

Examples of events which will work:

• Meeting Cinderella
• Opening My Favorite Gift
• Breaking the Pinata
• Scoring the Winning Goal

Try to make a list of at least 10 memorable moments. Make a copy of the list for you to keep at home. Send one copy of the list to school with your child by Tuesday August 30th (sooner than that is fine if not better). We will refer to this list as our list of Memorable Moments. Hopefully your child will be able to construct at least 3 narratives from events in the list. They will eventually be choosing from among those narratives one or two which they focus on for elaboration, revising, and editing for publication.

For your child's homework over the next few weeks, choose one event from the list each day and have your child tell the story to you orally. Listen for the following characteristics/items in their speech:

• Complete sentences (not run-on sentences or phrases)
• A beginning, middle, and closure to the story
• Details or examples of dialogue

Please finish your lists up this weekend. If all goes as planned we should begin work with our lists next week in class. Again, if you have any questions regarding this important assignment feel free to post in the comment section. If you would like to post an example for comment I will be glad to review with my thoughts.

Fifth Day of School

Thank you to those parents who already completed and turned in your child's writing folder. Your diligence is appreciated. Your 3rd home assignment will be posted this afternoon.

Today we continued to review and work on our Unit Project.

We have almost concluded the initial reading readiness battery of assessments.

In Math we learned the part-part-whole model (table) which will be explained in greater detail at Back-to-School.

We had our 3rd Violence Prevention lesson.

Fourth Day of School

Your child now has in their possession the yellow writing folder they will use in class for the remainder of the year. Please see comments for decorating your child's folder here.

Parents' 3rd homework assignment will be posted shortly.

Third Day of School

Five students returned completed homework. If incomplete, it was sent home to be completed. Each problem should be completed with a model and a number sentence.

Today we continued with letter formation and our first Unit Project.

In phonics we worked with initial consonant sounds.

We had our second violence prevention lesson.

In P.E. we have been working on calisthenics and maintaining personal space and keeping within boundaries.

Second Day of School

Today we continued work on letter formation.

We began a quick Unit Project writing a personal informational piece.

For the homework, Students must show a model and number sentence for the word problems. This was discussed in detail in class today. Have your child explain and show you what that means. It will be required for the remainder of the year on homework assignments.

We also had our first lesson of our violence prevention program, Second Step.

Thank you to those parents donating supplies. We will use a lot of tissues this year as well as all sizes of zip-loc style bags.

First Day of School

First day went by fairly smoothly. It was nice to see so many well-behaved children.

There is Math homework.

Today we worked on letter formation.

In phonics we distinguished between short and long 'a' sounds.

In Math, we discussed behaviors for problem solving  and we worked in our constructed response journals on the following question:

There are 3 students sitting at a table. How many fingers are there at the table in all? Make a model and write a math sentence. 

Most students were able to complete the task with minimal guidance. Some students found the correct answer but were unable to explain their work in writing. Some of the students were unable to complete the task with the correct answer but had the beginnings of a correct model.

I will be sending home your child's yellow writing folder tomorrow. Your second and third homework assignment relates to this yellow folder. Your task:

With you child's input, decorate all surfaces of your child's folder with some or all of the following items:

• Pictures of memorable events form the child's life
• Pictures or advertisements of your child's favorite items
• Pictures of topics which particularly interest your child (your child may have an interest in machines, space, dinosaurs, soccer, etc.)

 Return the decorated folder to school with your child by Friday August 26 , 2016.

You might notice that the folders are not very substantial in quality. After the folder is decorated you may consider adding a bit of clear packing tape over the items which you have attached. We will (hopefully) be using these folder the entire year.

Please post any questions you may have in the comment section below.

Welcome to Room 11

This blog has been created to keep parents and guardians of the students in Room 11 at Caroldale Learning Community informed about daily activities in our classroom and school. Please discuss what you read here with your children when appropriate. Ask them clarifying questions. They don't necessarily need to know how you know what happened during their day, they should simply know that you are informed.

Feel free to  respond to what you read by posting a comment or question. Avoid including students' names when responding to posts. General comments and questions are best in this arena.

Please remember the most efficient way to communicate with me on timely issues is to write a note on or attached to your child's homework. For convenience, you might consider linking to this page through an rss feed or through the google reader application.

I am also available for conferences after school most days except Tuesdays. It is okay to drop by without an appointment with questions and concerns.