Please read!

Dear Families,

I want to thank you for your help in supplying goodies for our Valentine party! The children were very excited about the boxes they had created, enjoyed the cakes, candies and cookies, and had a good time making their own valentines that day.

Again, I want to invite each of you to our classroom. We are in need of volunteers to read with students and help out in other capacities as well. If you will let me know when you can comein advance, I will have something ready for you to do, or a child for you to work with!

Since we have had so many snow days we have gotten out of the routine of a regular 5-day school week. Please make sure your child gets enough rest, eats a good breakfast and is ready to learn when they get to school. The end of the school year is growing near and we still have SO MUCH to learn! Please make sure to read with your child targeting specific skills such as reading comprehension(it's so important they UNDERSTAND what they're reading), addition and subtraction with regrouping, and writing in correct form. These are things you can do without me sending something home. If you need ideas, please do not hesitate to call or e-mail me and I will be glad to give you more information.

Progress reports will go home sometime in the next week. Please read over them carefully, sign and return them. If you have any questions or concerns I want you to talk with me about them. Email me or call the school to set up an appointment.

We have started our unit on fractions in mathematics. We will be specifically learning whole, half, fourths and thirds. This can be a really fun learning experience for the students. We try to make all of our lessons apply to real-world settings/experiences. The kitchen is a great learning environment for measurement. If you have any old measuring tools (measuring spoons, measuring cups)that you could share with the class, we would love to have them. If not, this is something you could do with your child at home to help them learn how measurement is used in your daily life.

As always, I appreciate and welcome your comments and ideas and I thank you for allowing me the opportunity to work with your child.

T.Campbell

Geometry

Family Members,

Today my class started a Geometry unit. Students will learn how to name and describe plane shapes and solid figures. Some of the math vocabulary you can help your child to understand are: solid figure - a solid figure has length, width, and height; edge - an edge is a place where two surfaces meet ( a cube has 12 edges) ; plane shapes - plane shapes are shapes that lie on a flat surface.
A home activity that could help your child develop a good understanding of how these geometric figures are found in the real world would be a shape hunt. Look around your house to find household items such as cereal boxes or party hats, potato chip cans, vegetable cans, ice cream cones, etc. Ask your child to write down the solid figures found and to name the plane shapes that make up their surfaces.