Growing in God's Love: Just Right Books, Apples, Inventions

These past few weeks your child has been learning how to use our classroom library. It's important that they are familiar with the organization of the library (by topic, author, and guided reading level) as well as how to choose a book that is "Just Right" for their current reading skills. We read the book Goldisocks and the Three Libearians (yup, that's the correct spelling!) and learned Goldisocks' 5 Finger Rule for choosing a "Just Right Book". Each child also has a book mark in their bag to help them remember the 5 Finger Rule. On Friday, the students brought their book bags home so they could Read Every Day over the weekend and record their books in their R.E.D. folders. I hope you have all had a chance to see and read with your child the books from their "Just Right Book" bag. Please send these back to school on Monday! We discussed the importance of being responsible for our classroom books and bringing the bag with all the books inside back to school. We are working hard to develop personal responsibility and to keep our classroom library intact. Thank you for your support with this!

New Scholastic book orders are coming home tomorrow, October 1st, and our September order should be arriving this week. There are some great categories (such as Science and Guided Reading Level) to look over. Please visit my Scholastic informational page for instructions. #readingmakesusgreatstudents

Our religion series Pflaum Gospel Weeklies: PROMISE is under way! (Pronounced FLOM) The Pflaum Gospel Weeklies are a liturgically-based catechetical program that helps parents participate in their important role as the first educators of your children. Please visit the Pflaum website as it is designed for busy families and has GREAT resources for parents. You'll find a short description of the Sunday Gospel plus suggested activities and discussion starters for each age level. (So if you have younger or older children at home, you can reference appropriate discussion points for them, too.) In class, we remember: God first, family second, friends third. It's a life-long lesson.

We had our first Star of the Week this past week: Valerie! As long as we have a full week of school, a STAR will be showcased. If it's a particularly busy week (ie: Homecoming, a week with a lot of assemblies or special schedules) we will not have a star in order to give everyone a full week to enjoy their time in the limelight. :) Information about Star of the Week is on my website, and I send home everything your child will need to be the STAR.

In Science we launched science centers with our study of APPLES. We assembled our Science notebooks; learned about Scientists and organized our learning using the tree map "Scientists CAN, HAVE, ARE"; watched a Brain Pop Jr. video about the observation method and will observe and record our data for what happens to an apple that is cut open and left out for six days; learned about what plants need and that apple trees need BEES for POLLINATION. We'll continue our science centers about apples this week and will segue into our study of pumpkin plants next week.

IMPORTANT INFORMATION:

Field Trip Form - SHREK THE MUSICAL - We will see Shrek the Musical on Thursday, December 6th at the Marriott Lincolnshire Theater. Please return the form this week as we must plan for purchasing tickets in advance. To chaperone, sign up here. Thank you!
Timeline Project: Due this Tuesday, October 2nd
Inventions/Inventors: Due Friday, October 12th
No spelling tests the next TWO weeks. This coming week is Unit 1 Review and Assessment for ELA (English/Language Arts: comprehension, phonics, vocabulary, spelling). The following week, October 8-12, is St. Mary's homecoming week with NO SCHOOL on Monday, October 8th in observation of Columbus Day.
We still need 2 more volunteers from our class for our field trip to Goebbert's Farm this month. Please sign up here. It's a super fun day!

Thank you for taking the time to read our blog and to stay informed on important classroom happenings! Our September bulletin board items will come home tomorrow to be proudly displayed at home. Enjoy our "classroom snapshots" below. :)

Rocket Math and S.T.E.M. Bin Rotation