We had a full week this week!! YEAH!! I was so excited to get in a full week and with testing it made for an easy transition into next week. I continue to wish for full weeks ahead and the snow to stay at bay.

ITBS Testing went well this week. We had “brain food” each day and the students worked extremely hard on the tests. We will get the results back in a month. Unfortunately, not in time for conferences, but they will be mailed to you shortly after we receive them here at school.

OCEANS—The students were able to go across to Ms. Meade’s room for an ocean layers demonstration. Ms. Youngmeyer and Mr. Dignin taught the students about salinity and temperature of the oceans. Ms. Youngmeyer is a Senior and Mr. Dignin is a Junior at Luther, doing a January term with Ms. Meade. We were very fortunate to have them do some wonderful demonstrations and stations with our students. We will continue to study about the ocean and then combine the vertebrates unit and ocean unit into our ocean animal unit. It will be a great combination!

SOCIAL STUDIES—The students will start with a new region next week. We just finished up the Northeast Region and we will start the Southeast Region. We will be studying these states a little differently as there are more states to cover. Students will be putting together projects about states to share with the class.

IMPORTANT DATES:

Wednesday, January 28—1:15 Dismissal Teacher In-Service
Wednesday, February 4th—NAEP Testing
Friday, February 6th—Swimming at the Cresco Fitness Center for January Reading Calendar—Keep Reading!!!
Tuesday/Thursday, February 10th & 12th—Parent/Teacher Conferences
Friday, February 13th and Monday, February 16th—No School


Book Orders—I have included a list of books that I would recommend and their lexile levels. Ask your child what his/her lexile level is and match the books accordingly. Research shows that students who have a book that fits 4 categories are more successful readers and more apt to continue reading without being asked. These categories are purpose (a book to support information that they want to gain or reading just for fun), interest (Do they devour mysteries? Learning more about a pet at home. Or do they want a book similar to the one they just finished?), comprehend and know (Are they able to retell you what the paragraph they just read was about? Does the student know the vocabulary that would go along with that book?) These are just some suggestions. I am taking a graduate class about effectively teaching reading in the classroom. I found that parents could easily help students pick out books using this strategy as well. If you have further questions about this process feel free to ask.
Thanks, Mrs. Wicklund