We are back in full swing now with the third nine weeks! It was nice to come back to a short week. I think everyone liked it that way.
Language Arts: In Reading we are focusing on Procedural Text. Procedural text is any reading of procedures or directions. This might include recipes, manuals, How to books, etc. This is an important skill and one that actually gets overlooked often. Any assignment a student has comes with directions. Those are the most important procedures that often get ignored. Hopefully with a couple of weeks of focus on procedural reading, this will improve.
In Writing, we are reviewing simple, compound, and complex sentences. Students are beginning to see how complex sentences make writing more interesting, especially when they start to manipulate the order of the dependent clause and the independent clause. I taught them with a Batman and Robin example. Ask your child to explain that to you. ;) We will also be starting our next expository later this week. As usual, this is something we work on in class. The last expository, about an animal that makes a good pet, I sent home, but usually I keep all of the kids' writing until the end of the year. You are always welcome to make an appointment to come up and see the progress your child is making in writing if you'd like. I'm in the process of grading the expositories on traditions. I will show the students their papers and go over the areas that need improvement, but you won't see the paper unless you come to the classroom.
In addition to what we are doing in class, we are analyzing our writing benchmark from December to understand all of the concepts. That will go home upon completion for your review, but I'll need them back. Also, beginning tomorrow, there will be revising/editing homework each week. It will normally be assigned Monday and due Friday. Jan. 9 will be our first day to look at it. We will do the first half together in class, and the second half will go home and due on Friday.
In Social Studies, all explorer books were due today. I only have about 3 still missing from the two classes. Ask your child if this is something he or she should be working on at home. Students were given the choice of finishing it during flex Friday last week or finishing it over the weekend. I had a few kids who came back empty handed today. We are wrapping up our study of European explorers this week and will soon be studying missions in Texas.
I hope you have a great week!