First Day Updates

The first day has started off great!  The students have listened very well as we went through the classroom rules and structure.  There is a lot of information for them to take in on the first day.

Here are a few notes for the beginning of the year:

Math Expressions

• We have a new math series this year called Math Expressions.
• The main focus for the first few months is multiplication and division.
• They teach the two together since they are so closely tied.
• Wednesday and Thursday the students will be taking a pretest for the math series.  This will help me see what areas each student is confident in and where they may need assistance.  The test is not graded.
• Friday we will begin lesson one of the math series.
• Because of the pretest we won't have any homework this week, but will get started with math and language arts homework next week.

Gym and Computers

• We will only have gym on days A, C, and E this year.
• On days D and F we will have computers at the same time as our gym time.  
• Day B will be a time that we will do an activity in the classroom.  It will usually be a chance to put in extra work on an area of need.  Tomorrow it will be a chance to pick out silent reading books from our library.

Reading Calendars

• I will be sending home reading calendars tonight as well.
• The students are responsible for the calendar starting today (Sept. 4) until the end of the year.
• They should read for 15 minutes each night, but get 4 skip days whenever they would like to return them.
• If they return their calendar finished, signed, and on time they receive an extra 30 minute reading recess on Monday, October 1st.
• When Pizza Hut's Book-It starts in October they will also receive the personal pan pizza for returning their reading calendar.