Tuesday, August 28, 2012

We had a good whole day today!  This morning, the students wrote and drew in their interactive journals.  These are journals that they write to me about whatever they want and I will write back.  We went over different classroom procedures, our discipline system, and rewards.  We started using our writing notebooks by writing out the memory verse for the week.  I shared my brown bag, and then some of the students got to share as well. 

After morning recess, the students had their first Spanish class with Mrs. Anfinson.  In the afternoon, the students practiced the cursive l, and I started reading aloud a book called The World according to Humphrey, which is about a hamster that is a class pet.  The students took the spelling pretest, and several students got all of the words correct!  Those students will have the challenge words to study instead.  This week's spelling and memory is just practice and will not be graded. 

I talked to the class about our classroom library, and the students got to pick out a few books they want to read.  They picked one to keep in their desk, and they put the rest in their book box.  Students can also bring books from home to read at school if they want.

After our last recess, we did the first of a series of art lessons on the elements of art.  Today we focused on lines.  I had the students listen to part of the song "Danse Macabre" by Camille Saint-Saens.  I stopped the song every now and then and had the students draw different kinds of lines that they thought depicted the mood of that part of the song.  I wrote the times that I stopped the song on the students' papers, so if you want to listen at home and follow your child's lines, you can! 

I passed out the homework sheets that the students should keep in their blue homework folders.  They are bringing those home today because I assigned reading for 20 minutes as their homework tonight.  Once your child has read, sign the reading log and have them return it in their folder to school tomorrow for me to check.  From now on, the students are expected to read every school night for 20 minutes.