Homework, Dates, and the Week Ahead (Week 2)

Good morning families,

I trust that all of you had a pleasant and life-giving weekend. We had family in town this weekend and my house had, at one point, 16 kids in it for Conner's birthday party. Good practice I guess.

Homework
Your child is to read 20 minutes each day, including Saturdays and Sundays. Each day after they read, they will log their choice into a reading log. They will have to write the title, type of book (fiction or nonfiction), and the number of pages read. They should write the number of pages in a subtraction math fact. For example, if I ended reading on page 23 but started on page 16, I could write 23-16=7. Any practice with math is good practice!

Also, your child will have a very short math packet where he/she will practice the math concepts we explored last week. Please look over this with them and help them correct miscues. Doing so will provide you insight into how they are working through the concept and help reinforce some of the learning.

Both of these assignments are to be completed and turned in before Explorations on Monday, August 31st.

Dates
Monday, 9/7: Labor Day, no school
Thursday, 9/17: Opening Picnic, hold on times
Thursday, 9/24: Early Dismissal, conference day

If you would like to schedule a conference with me for that Thursday, send me an email.

The Week Ahead
This week, we are going to look at the reading strategies that our parents are using when they read. We'll categorize them and come up with strategies that we can fall back on when we are trying to figure out how to say a word or figure out what a word means. If you have some that didn't make it in the packet, feel free to post some in the comments!

We are still setting up our Writer's Workshop time. Today, we compiled lists to help us have a point of reference for thinking of ideas to write about. As we "get the cobwebs" out, we will be working on ending punctuation in our writing.

In Math, we are working on fluently adding and subtracting within 20, including decomposing numbers to help us begin to understand what regrouping actually does.

In Unit of Study, we are going to look at maps this week, including how populations are distributed based on resources available.

Adoption update: Tori and I are flying out the beginning of Labor Day weekend to visit the 4 kids and we'll get to hang with them for 3 days. The paperwork has been completed by both Texas and SC and so it should be happening soon! Keep us in your thoughts and prayers. Thx.