Mrs.

Marinos Class September Newsletter

September 2012 First, I would like to welcome everyone to Woodland Elementary and to my room. I am very excited about the school year and am already enjoying having your children in class. Over the course of the year, we will be exploring many new concepts and continuing to develop those learned in previous years. During the month of September, we will be focusing on: Reading: We are starting the year using Houghton Mifflin and the Making Meaning reading program. The Making Meaning program explicitly teaches comprehension strategiesintroducing them in the grades where they are developmentally appropriate. In addition, The Making Meaning program helps students and teachers become a supportive community of readers. Program lessons use the following cooperative structures to teach and support positive social development: Turn to Your Partner, Think, Pair, Share, Group Brainstorming, Heads Together, and Think, Pair, Write. Word Work We will be using the Words Their Way program to provide individualized spelling lessons for your child. Weekly word work activities for the class and home will commence towards the end of September after the students spelling inventories are assessed. The website spellingcity.com will be used for practice and assessment. Please see separate handout on this. Writing and Language The focus for September will be on the writing workshop model, as well as the trait ideas. The students will learn how to generate ideas as part of the pre-writing stage of the writing process through mentor texts, mini-lessons, conferences and sharing. In addition, students will generate an ideas map that will stay in their portfolio. Math: Our class has already jumped right into the math program on the first day of school. We will finish Unit 1 and begin Unit 2 this month. An overview of the units is below: Unit 1 - Naming & Constructing Geometric Figures. Students will be introduced to the new Student Reference Book (SRB) and review earlier geometry concepts as well as learn how to draw a circle with a compass. Unit 2 - Using Numbers & Organizing Data. This unit focuses on name collection boxes, place value, data and statistics, displaying data with a bar graph, and a review of multi-digit addition and subtraction. Please refer to the family letter for a more detailed view of each unit.

Science: The Magnetism and Electricity Module consists of five sequential investigations, each designed to introduce or reinforce concepts in physical science. The investigations provide opportunities for students to explore the natural and human-made worlds by observing and manipulating materials in focused settings using simple tools. Blog: Please check out my blog wendymarino.com. I will be posting lots of information about the class here. Also, if you do not have access to a computer/internet at home, please send me a note. I may be able to help you get these at a very low cost.

General Information: We have gym on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Please make sure your child has the appropriate footwear to participate. Our lunch is at 12:40 pm. This can be a long wait for students. Please make sure that your child has a good breakfast and brings a snack. If your child is unable to eat breakfast at home, please have him/her have some at school. Breakfast costs $1.25 and is free for free lunch families. Currently the PTO is in the process of identifying parent volunteers for school. If you have any outstanding forms, please send them in as soon as possible. I enjoy the Scholastic Book Club and will be sending home catalogues on a monthly basis. This is entirely optional. I will be placing the first order at the end of the month. If you plan on purchasing anything, please submit your form and a check by then. If you need to contact me, please feel free to send me a note, email me at wmarino@milfordma.com, or call the school directly at 508.478.1186. Have a wonderful month! Mrs. Marino