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Campus News

Lower Division NewsletterFebruary 12, 2010

Junior Kindergarten

Language Arts

We continue to compare and contrast thefarm and country with the city. We will alsolearn about our new Alpha friend, V, andreview C and Q. In handwriting (HWT),wewill learn the letter Rr and review Pp, Bb,Ss, and Jj. The students will begin to usecapital letters at the beginning of sentences

and put the appropriate punctuation mark atthe end of their sentences. Our HighFrequency Words (HFW) will be and, go,for, have,theand said. We will unscramblecolor words and start using our HFW insentences. We will also review the ig word

family and an and at words.

Social Studies

Our virtue is charity. We will read storiesabout thinking of others in need and discusshow we can be charitable.

Science

We will plant our seeds and start to charttheir growth.

Math

Students will compare capacities using thesand and water table. We will also talk

about the things we do with money andwhat types of things people can buy usingmoney. The children will practice drawing simple shapes and review the fractions whole, half, and

quarter. They will continue adding and subtracting using manipulatives.

Senior Kindergarten

Language Arts

In our Famous American unit, the children will l isten to stories about Abe Lincoln and George

Washington. We will focus our lessons on listening comprehension and identifying story elements:characters, setting, events, problem/solution, and conclusions. The children will be involved with severalart projects that will spark their creativity and help them to retell the story to you. Daily reading groups

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help the children work on blending and segmenting words,comprehension, and retelling the story. Reading each eveningbefore bed will greatly help to improve your childs reading.In phonics, the children will review long vowels /a/, /e/ and

/i/. The children will also review blends and digraphs. Inwriting, they are learning to expand their ideas when writing;

their main focus is brainstorming their own ideas on a giventopic. This is helping them to organize and develop all of thetraits of a good writer. We will continue to work on ideas,organization, word choice, and conventions.

Social Studies

The children will go over their phone numbers,addresses, and tying their shoes. Please reinforce thesevaluable self-help skills at home. The children will beassessed on these skills in the upcoming weeks. Our

Famous American unit is off to a great start. Ms. Szarkoread us a great story during media time on Mr. Lincoln.

This month, the virtue is Charity. Students will readbooks and discuss the importance of lending a helpinghand.

Math

Our focus for the next couple of weeks will be introducing tens/ones, reviewing odd and even numbers,adding and subtracting numbers to 15, using our touch points to count money, and tally marks. We willcontinue to work with numbers to 100, adding with tens and ones, fractions, telling time, and 3-dimentional shapes.

Grade 1

Language Arts

In the next two weeks ourreading strategies will focus on

phonics and decoding,comparing/contrasting, and notingdetails while reading fiction andrealistic fiction selections. Ourphonics and spelling will focus onsounds of y, more vowel pairs,

and compound words. Ourwriting will continue to emphasizefriendly letter writing andparagraph writing.

Grammar skills will concentrate onusing is and are, was and were.Please continue to practice highfrequency words.

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Social Studies

February is a short month with many celebrations. As we celebrate Presidents Day, students will learn

about George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. They will also learn about many important AfricanAmericans as we celebrate Black History month. Additionally, the students will learn the history ofValentines Day.

Math

In the next two weeks, students will work on ordering numbers through 100, use 10 to make an

estimation, compare numbers using symbols , or =, and identify ordinal numbers.

Math vocabulary: ones, tens, regroup, greater than, less than, before, after, between, andordinal numbers

Science

We will wrap up our unit on solids and liquids and begin our unit on comparing and measuring.

Grade 2

Thank you to all our parents for helping to make our Sweetheart Breakfast a heartfelt party for the kids.

Language Arts

We are enjoying our new theme,Amazing Animals. We recentlywrote acrostic poems about some

amazing animals to get us thinkingabout how remarkable animals can

be. We will continue to focus onreviewing reading strategies whiledeveloping story elements and

retelling skills. The selections willhelp us to draw conclusions,summarize, identify fantasy and

realism, and discuss cause andeffect and fact and opinion. Ourphonics and spelling lessons willinclude ar, er, ir, or, ur, oa, owand endings nd, -ng, -nk, nt,mp. Our writing experiences will center on developing good paragraphswith details, composing letters, and writing stories. Our grammar will focus on pronouns and singularand possessive nouns. We are developing as readers and writers.

Social Studies

We will focus heavily on biographies in February. We will continue our study of important people in ourcountry. We will also begin to learn more about United States symbols.

Science

We will be starting our new unit of study, Changes. We will begin by thinking about how thingschange and discuss changes that could happen in solids, liquids, and gases. We will test, observe, and

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describe changes in a water experiment. Then we will explore freezing and melting before conducting anexperiment about evaporation and condensation. It is a perfect time of year to talk about the changes ofliquids and gases in the cold early mornings.

Math

We continue to practice regrouping when adding two-digit numbers. We recently began to regroup whensubtracting. Some of the different strategies we will use will be using a hundred chart, regrouping tens,and subtracting one digit numbers from two digit numbers. We continue to problem solve and practiceour math facts.

Grade 3

Language Arts

Students are enjoying their study of biographies in their anthologies. They are reflecting on what theyhave read, sharing facts with partners, and writingsummaries. This activity helps them become more

aware of what they have read.We are happily writing away on our animal reports andwill soon be finished with the first draft. Next we will beengaged in peer editing and examining sentence

structure for repeat phrases (Sentence Fluency). Goodnews: the library books can now be returned to thelibrary! Thanks for your support of our class book

project!

Social Studies

Third grade is now involved with learning about their

second early Florida tribe, the Timucuans. They arelearning and researching in preparation for assembling

the next group poster. They love learning about people

who lived here so long ago.

Science

Our trip to Sweetwater Organic Farm was inspiring. Itstime to get out in the garden again! Students will weedand organize the garden to prepare for the warm-

weather garden choices. Our compost cycle iscomplete, and we will be using it as natural fertilizer.

Youve got to love the cycle! We will have a big boost of

new green material from House Day, so we will need tobalance it out with some brown. Dont forget to send in

your dryer lint, and if anyone is willing to shred theirnewspaper for us, that would be GREAT!

Students completed their field test on minerals. Ourfocus will now switch to rocks and the rock cycle.

Math

We will continue our study of division. Our focus will be on division facts for 3, 4, 6, 7, and 8. We will

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use the multiplication table to show yet another relationship between multiplication and division. Pleasecontinue to study the multiplication facts daily to help your child be successful. Thank you from thebottom of our Valentines Day hearts.

Grade 4

Language Arts

In class, the students continue to gather interesting facts from their biographies. They are completing

graphic organizers and writing reports on laptops. In technology, they are transferring these ideas intopower point slides. In grammar, we will focus on adverbs and prepositions following our assessment ofpronouns.

Social Studies

The students learned many interesting facts from our

visiting Abraham Lincoln impersonator, Jim Getty.Thank you to Dr. Persky who donated the resources

and made it possible for us to see and hear such awonderful historical figure come to life.

We continue to study the Northeastern region of theUnited States. We will learn about the early history,growth, and resources.

Science

Our buzz boxes should be finished soon and ready to

come home. The students are so eager to share theirlearning with you. Allow them to explain the processof a circuit. Listen to their strong usage of the correct

terminology. Working in groups, they will spend thenext two weeks planning and lighting four rooms of a

cardboard house.

Math

We will begin studying fractions by working withequivalent fractions and finding the simplest form of afraction. We will then compare and order fractions,and work with mixed numbers and improper fractions.Did you know that four students have already masteredtheir mad minute in multiplication and are now taking

division mad minute quizzes on Friday? Continue toencourage your childs mastery of multiplication facts.I look forward to sharing many more Sonic treats with

students.

A big thank you to all. We raised

$82.00 for Helping Hands Pantry on

our last dress down day.

The Giraffe Club

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Second Grade Went to MOSI

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Upcoming Events..

February 17, 2010First grade hosts assembly dress uniforms 2:30 p.m.

February 19, 2010

Giraffe Club sponsors Jeans for Haiti Day everyone is allowed to wear blue jeans (no rips or tears) for$2.00. All monies will go to UNICEF to help those in need in Haiti.

Pet Day (postponed from February 12) 2:00 p.m.

February 24, 2010SK hosts assembly dress uniforms 2:30 p.m.Ms. Uthes class to ABC TV dress uniforms 9:45 a.m. 1:45 p.m.SK to the dentist

February 25, 2010Day of Manners dress uniformsSK to Chilis 10:45 a.m. 12:15 p.m.Grade 3 to Florida Pioneer Museum 9:00 a.m. 1:00 p.m.

February 26, 2010Re-enrollment contracts are due

February 27, 2010Academy competes in Odyssey of the Mind

March 5 and 6, 2010All School Production Wesley Chapel Center

March 8, 2010

Grandparents Day 8:30 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.

March 10, 2010JK hosts assembly dress uniforms 2:30 p.m.

March 11, 2010End of third quarter

March 12, 2010No classes Professional Day

March 17, 2010Grade 3 hosts assembly dress uniforms 2:30 p.m.

March 19, 2010Report cards go home