March 19, 2014

I wanted to thank those who helped their children remember to do their homework and to bring it back the next day. Those who did received stickers! After turning in their homework, I wanted to see if they understood the lesson on our US flag and not just answering true-false questions:  I’m proud to say that they all understood the US flag! As a little “reward” they each colored their own USA flag; the PM class had enough time to write down two specific details about what they learned about the flag.  If there is time tomorrow, AM class will do so, too. 

With the AM I group, I’ve worked on more capitalization and punctuation by dictating sentences for them to which spelling did not count, however, I did help them spell a few words. A lot of work still needs to be done. As such, I will briefly touch base on the nouns-to-pronouns lesson, and concentrate more on caps/punc.  

AM II/III and PM worked on finishing their Journals on Eric Carle. As part of the unit, all classes are working on a few springtime/Eric Carle art projects. Please pardon the mess as we attempt to finish this before March is over.  The Eric Carle unit ties in really well with our springtime theme. In so doing, we’re making ladybug, bumblebee, and perhaps strawberry rocks for our rock garden. Because our garden is next to the construction site, the rocks will be placed in the small garden by yours truly over the weekend when the site is closed. I will take pictures for the children to see their results. Journal-wise, they’re getting better and better at adding more details, and making less grammatical and technical mistakes. I’m really impressed with their work.

Tonight’s homework is to write five complete sentences using five of their words from their spelling lists. I’ve provided manuscript paper to each of the children. For those who needed more practice with their penmanship, I’ve instructed them to use the wider lines (top line, broken line, and bottom line); for the rest, I’ve explained to them to write on each line as if they’re writing in their composition notebooks.