September 8 - 12

Hello Families!

I hope that the start of the school year has been going well for you.  It is sure busy around Sandstone School!  One of the things that I introduced to the students this week was the Student Planner.  Please bear with us as we learn the best ways to make these work for us.  We completed many of our tasks this week, such as assessing each student's reading level, comprehension skills, vocabulary, and understanding of place value.  We also took a rounding pre-test in order to determine what the third-graders already know about rounding.  Earlier in the week, I found that the class needed more review in place value, so we spent the week reviewing that, and we will start rounding next week.  One of the major challenges this week was actually in following directions and transitioning from place to place in the room without talking.  The students had to practice this quite a bit, so we were unable to complete some of the learning that I had hoped to do.  These skills of school behaviors are so important that I am wanting to get them very solid right at the beginning of the year.

Here's a peek into our goals for the next week:

Reading - We will be starting the procedures for our reading time.  I will be introducing the small reading group rotations, study stations, and the inquiry project process and resources.

Spelling - This is our first week for spelling!  I will post the spelling list on the blog this week if you and your child need access to it and do not have the list at home.  We will be completing a pre-test on Monday, various activities throughout the week to practice spelling the words, and we will test on Friday.  Students are required to use lower-case/upper-case letters as appropriate.

Math - The students will be practicing rounding numbers to the nearest 10 and 100.

Writing - The students will be completing the journal entries and story starters during their reading rotation stations.

Art - The third-graders will complete their display boards this week.  We hope to have them done and ready for you to see at Open House on Sept. 18!

Computers:  I am so grateful for the passage of the technology levy.  Because of that levy, we were able to purchase more Chrome books for our school.  The most helpful part of this is that the students can work at their own, individualized level for a period of time during the days that we have the lab of computers.  I will be introducing the students to MobyMax this week, and they will be working on math and language arts skills.

As always, if you have any questions or concerns, please contact me.  Have a great weekend and next week!
Miss Kimpton