Webpage 1-08-10
This is our classroom webpage! We hope it is informative and keeps you updated on what's happening at school. If you have any questions or suggestions, please let us know.
You can email me at: staffordd@royaloakschools.com
Click Here to view the Curriculum Guide I passed out during Curriculum Night. It lists classroom Policies and Procedures including the Redo Policy.
Paired Reading
This week we used a new strategy in our class called Paired Reading. Paired reading is a strategy that builds fluency in reading. Students can either be paired by the teacher or in our case this week, chosen by the students. Sometimes students choose readers who are more fluent readers than themselves in order to hear what reading fluently sounds like. Other times, readers pick readers who are at about the same reading level so they can read at a similar pace. Students take turns reading paragraphs and can help each other when they get stuck on a word, read a sentence with the wrong phrasing, or rush through punctuation. We used one of our realistic fiction stories from this month's Storyworks issue (which also happens to be the genre we're working on in writing!) Not only does paired reading make us all better readers, it's totally fun!
Alicia and Libby take turns reading paragraphs of the same story.
Sabrina and Victoria found a warm spot near the heater to read their story together!
Get Ready for Math and Science Week!
This coming Monday is the start of Oak Ridge's Annual Math and Science Week! It's a week of activities, assemblies, and FUN! Each child was given a packet for St. Jude's Mathathon. The packet takes the place of math homework next week. They were also given 5 tickets of different colors. Children do the activity on the ticket, fill it out, and then turn it in by Friday to be counted in the class total of tickets. The class with the most tickets gets a special science experiment performed in their classroom! Also, Math and Science Night is Thursday, January 14th from 5:30-7:30. It's LOTS of fun! If you'd like to volunteer in anyway, contact Tere Ryan, tere@ryan5.net for more information. We're also going to make dressing for school part of Math and Science week. Each day your child can participate by wearing something math or science related. Check the schedule in their planner. And get ready for a week of diving in to two of our favorite subjects!
Amanda has her Math and Science tickets ready to go!
Do the Math!
We are really getting ready for lots of multiplication work this month! Because it's so important for fast calculation, we are memorizing our multiplication tables. Students worked this week on creating a personalized set of thirty-six flash cards to help them study. Students should be able to recall a times table math fact within two seconds. They will be working on their own as well as with a partner to prepare them for the 100% Club! Anytime you've got a spare moment or two, like in the grocery line, driving to school, doing dishes together, practice those math facts!
Jarmarious works on his two-sided flash cards.
Victoria uses her math text book as a reference while making her flash cards.
Getting Ready to Publish!
Students have been working very hard to get their essays ready to publish to our website. After going through the writing process, typing up their essays using AlphaSmarts (see last week's article), they are finally ready for editing in the computer lab. Students have been putting the finishing touches on their papers by making sure they are in paragraph form, correcting any spelling or punctuation errors, and reading them over carefully to make sure they say what they want them to clearly. The last step will be to make them available on our website!
And here they are! If you'd like to read an essay where students advance an idea about things that are important to them, simply click on the name below. Students have written about Recycling, Family, School, and much more! (If a name isn't "clickable" it means the essay is on its way!)
| Abraham | Aidan | Alex | Alicia | Amanda | Ben | Chase |
| Devon | Elliott | Evan | Hailey | Hannah | Isabel | Jarmarious |
| Jason | Joey | Kincaid | Kolton | Kyle | Libby | Malina |
| Maverick | Maxx | Payton | Ricky | Sabrina | Victoria |
Using the computer makes it easy for Jason to edit his work.
Evan gives his essay the once over one more time before printing!
Book Order Deals!
This month Scholastic Books is again offering some good deals on books. One of their offers is that if you order $10 or more from one flyer online, you can get one free book up to $5.00! Check out the details when you order online. This deal is not available if you send in the order to the classroom. If you'd like to order online, just click on this link. Remember our log in username is stafford212 and our password is OakRidge. You can also send orders in the old fashioned way as well. This week's orders are due by Friday, Januray 15th.
Study Island Anyone?
With just a click, your child can get some extra practice at home on Michigan Curriculum! If you click on the Study Island link that's on the left of this page, it will take you right to the website where we work on Reading and Math skills.
The log in is:
firstname.lastname@oakridge
password is:
firstname
It's a great way to reinforce what we're doing in the computer lab and it's fun!
Archived Webpages
If there was something you missed on a previous week, I am making links to the webpages that we've already had up. Click on one of the weeks below to find what you need.
You can also check out our past newsletter issues by clicking on the links below!