Laurelhurst SchoolNewsletters
December 6, 2011
Hello,
I hope you all enjoyed the Thanksgiving holiday and found some time to rest, relax, and enjoy your family. I enjoyed seeing and talking about your child's progress at conferences. The kids came back from Thanksgiving Vacation and settled right back into routines and we hit the ground running!
March 14th is the third grade play, Portland: The Musical. Mr. Ralph Nelson is with us again, bringing his great talent and direction. We have had two play practices to date and they will resume after the winter break until show time! The students have really enjoyed learning the new songs for this year's play. The songs are quite catchy, so I am sure you will have the opportunity to hear your child singing songs from the play at home.
In addition to the play, we also started our science unit, Rocks and Minerals, last week. We will continue this unit up until winter break and a couple weeks after. Up to date we have examined the different properties of rocks and discussed them. The students are keeping a rocks and minerals journal at school to record their wonderings and observations. They are all very enthusiastic about this science unit.
This week we ended our math unit on place value, and we began our third math unit which will cover geometry. When home connections in math are sent home, please be sure to read the short description and purpose at the top of your child's homework assignment. It will explain what we have been doing in class as well as why.
In reading we continue to read the main selection story in our reading curriculum, discuss the weekly vocabulary, as well as the comprehension skill and strategy. Walk to Read continues on Wednesday-Friday, and allows us to differentiate the curriculum for your child's reading needs.
In writing, we continue to plug along on our personal narratives. We have been talking about sensory detail and how it can enrich our writing, as well as precise verbs (the kids really seemed to enjoy brainstorming lists or precise verbs). We have also been "reading" a picture book called "The Scary Night" which is made up of black and white illustrations and no words. Your child has been working with a partner to come up with a sentence using their knowledge of sensory detail to help tell the story. Each pair of student’s sentences will be combined to tell the story and displayed in the hall to read. Look for this towards the end of next week and in the beginning of the year!
Finally, we just wrapped up our first round of OAKS (Oregon Assessment of Knowledge and Skills) in the area of reading. As I mentioned during conferences, your child has three opportunities to take this test in the subject areas of math and reading. We will begin our first round in math on Monday, December 12th. .
If you have any questions, please feel free to email me at mgemmet@pps.net or call. If something is urgent please call at 503-916-6210, as I am not always able to get to my email during the day.
Happy Holidays!
Michelle Gemmet
