Happy Friday... oh wait... it's only Thursday! I hope you and your family have a wonderful, long weekend! It looks like the weather will be beautiful!

Thanks to everyone for taking time out of your busy schedule to meet with me. I love conferences! I love to tell everyone how well their child is doing! It's also nice to express concerns face to face. PLEASE, if you have any questions about what we discussed at your child's conference, email me or write me a note. I don't want you to have any questions!

Here's what we've been doing and what we will be doing: (It was SUCH a strange week, we didn't get to everything I wanted to this week!)

Language Arts: We will continue working with folktales. Next week we'll be focusing on character development -- how and why a character changes during a story. We'll also be discussing the setting of a piece of literature. This includes where and when the story takes place. Stories we'll be reading are: "The Pancake", "The Tiger and the Big Wind", and "The Monkey and the Crocodile". Ask your child about these stories throughout the week.

Math: We're stopping addition with regrouping for awhile (there will still be some practice) and we're beginning with subtraction. We'll be starting with fact families - showing the relationship between addition and subtraction facts. Then we'll continue with word problems where they'll need to subtract to find the answers. We'll be slowly working toward subtraction with regrouping. PLEASE - it will greatly benefit your child to be practicing math facts at home. You can use a computer program/game or flashcards...anything!

Science: Observing our ecosystems (aquariums) is our main focus. We're so proud of the fact we haven't had any more casualties! We'll also be discussing food chains and food webs...using the organisms in our rooms and others in the environment.

Word Study: the next list is homophones - words that sound the same but the meanings are different. Your child will need to be able to spell each word correctly, but must also be able to use each word correctly in a sentence.

Thanks to the parents who signed up to help out in the classroom on the morning of the 28th. The Pumpkin Math activities are really fun and the kids really love it! If you can't make it to that...please try to stop by for the party that afternoon. Thanks to Becca Clark and RoseAnn Shapiro for getting everything together for the party!

Well...that's it for now...have a wonderful weekend!
Faith Humerick