Hodges Hotline February 14, 2011

We will have school next Monday, February 21 (President’s Day) to make up one of our snow days. Another snow day will be made up on Easter Monday, April 25. Please watch the school newsletter for other make up days.

Math this week we’ll be working on the same things we worked on last week; addition and subtraction number stories. We’ll spend time making them up and writing number models for them. Number stories use words and number, number models; aka number sentence use numbers only. Last week we worked on finding the difference in the amount of money two people had. Most of the class had difficulty with this concept and it’s something we’ll be working on a lot over the next several weeks. Also, for telling time they are still confused with the hands (which is the minute and which is the hour), and telling time to the quarter hour (after and before). We’ve done quite a bit of work with the equal sign; what is on one side of the equal sign has to equal what is on the other side. 2 + 3 = 5, 7 = 4 + 3, 9 – 4 = 5, and 12 = 15 – 3 are four examples of some of the problems we’ve looked at. When working with the <, >, and = we solve any work that needs to be done first and then we determine the correct sign. For example N N N N D N we first count the money and write it above the coins for each side. Then we put two dots next to the greatest (biggest) number, one dot next to the smallest number, and connect the dots. Last, we read the problem left to right. Math vocabulary your child should know and understand: sum, total, addition, plus, more, subtraction, difference, take away, less, greater than, more than, less than, equal, same, number model, number sentence, quarter after/past, quarter before/to/till/of, half past, hour hand, minute hand, and the math signs/symbols +, -, $ ., <, >, = , ____. As always, please take time every day to practice math facts (we need to have our power facts) and or counting and exchanging coins with your child.

For Reading, we’ll be reading ‘Stan’s Stunt’ this week. We’ll talk about blends, digraphs, plurals, setting, characters, quotation marks, and context clues this week. Many children are ignoring punctuation marks when reading. When they are reading to you at home, if they ‘run over’ a punctuation mark please stop them, discuss it, and then have them read it again. Sometimes it’s helpful for them if you read it they way they did and then the way it should be with the punctuation mark in place. We’ll perform this story as a skit too. For reading homework when your child reads they need to pay special attention to their character. I apologize for not getting animal books out last week. We spent extra time with our Black American discussions and time got away from us. Timelines (I’ll check this off as I look at them), graphic organizer, and visual aid choices should be turned in tomorrow. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

Spelling:

Proofreading is a necessity for new spellers! As you look at your child’s dictation papers with them please have them read it to you. For those of you who are doing that thank you, if you aren’t please try to. A huge majority of their errors could be corrected if they would stop and read what they write. Not what they wanted to write but the words they actually wrote. If they are spelling words with ck, FLSZ, and magic e wrong why do you think that is? Don’t tell them which words they missed, they need to find them on their own. Are you tired of reading this? Your child is tired of hearing it but, until they proofread I’ll continue to say it to them and you. They need the extra practice with you at home. For Friday’s dictation these are some of the errors children made:

capitalization-4 no punctuation-6 question mark-1

home-4 team-13 start-3 game-1 well-6 coach-13

said-8 players-4 sleep-4 eat-1 bunch-7 grapes-14

to-4 and-2 of-4 with-2 breakfast-16

Other than team, coach, sleep, and breakfast these mistakes should have been corrected during the test. For words with endings (grapes) we have talked and talked, and talked about taking off the ending, spelling the base word, then ask 3, 4, or 5 questions for adding the ending.

Writing: Oops, we are having a lot of trouble with writing our narrative story. We are going to start over from the beginning. We did finish writing our letters last week. This week in addition to the narrative story we’re going to write two acrostic poems and start writing a sequential piece.

Upcoming Events:

Tuesday, Feb 15, 3^rd Quarter Progress Reports

Monday, Feb 21, President’s Day – We have a full day of school!

Homework:

Monday: Read, Money & Δ’s

Tuesday: Read, Timed Fact Sheet & Δ’s

Wednesday: Read, Money & Δ’s

Thursday: Read, Money & Δ’s

Friday: Read, Money, Timed Fact Sheet & Δ’s

If you have any questions please contact me by phone or e-mail; 353-2282 school, 784-9197 home, chodges@littleflowerparish.org. I will respond as quickly as possible.

Mrs. Hodges