EXCITING NEWS! January 23rd-31st

Dear families,

I want to apologize for my late BLOG. I usually try to have a new one written early each week; however, I've been waiting for a confirmation on an exciting field trip we will be taking on Tuesday, February 2nd. We have reservations for the "Julian Train & Gold Mine Tour". Yeah!! I am looking for approximately five drivers, so please let me know as soon as possible if you can volunteer. The cost is $7.00 for students and $10.00 for adults. I'm sorry, we cannot cover the cost of drivers, but I'm sure this field trip will be worth every penny. Please bring the $7.00/$10.00 fee as soon as possible. The train ride and tour starts at 11:30am, so we will leave IA at approximately 9:45am. As you know, we are reading a book about the goldrush in class, as well as learning about California's history, so this field trip will help the whole idea of mining for gold come to life! I can't wait!

We are on Lesson 10 in Wordly Wise for the upcoming week. Students practice learning the definitions of the words on the word list through a variety of in class activities. I have just discovered that your child can also go on-line to www.wordlywise.com and practice their words though various game activities. I would encourage all students to do this as I am still seeing some low scores on the weekly assessment for definitions. Additionally, for spelling, each week the word list is being entered on www.spellingcity.com. If you go to Kim's list, students can practice their spelling.

For writing, almost all students have started their "not so rough drafts" for their fictional narratives. Yes, this took a long time, but I believe the results will be worth it. Ask your child why I call them "not so rough"! We are also working on our informational reports on an important California figure. As soon as the reports are done, we will have one more session on dioramas and schedule the "Wax Museum" activity. You will all be invited to this event.

Once we have finished this writing, I will be focusing on science. In other words, the time we spent writing will be devoted to covering science standards we have not gotten to so far this year. I know your children are enthusiastic about moving on to this important academic area.

In math, we continue to practice multiplication and division facts. This week we will be looking at how to approach word problems. They will learn what to pay attention to, what certain words indicate, drawing as a strategy, etc.

I think that is it for now. If you have questions or concerns, please email or stop by.
Kim