September Newsletter
Mrs. McGehee’s Class News
It’s going to be a fantastic year!
I am having such a great time getting
to know your child, and I am so
excited to have your child in my
classroom this year! I will be
emailing our class newsletter to
you each month. It will also be
available for you on our class
website.
Land and Water
We are going to begin our science unit of study on Land and Water!
Key points for students to understand:
 Streams and rivers slowly reshape the earth’s surface by
eroding soil and rocks and carrying them to a different
location.
 Rainwater reshapes the earth’s surface by eroding soil.
 Studying different properties of soils
 Landform study: streams, rivers, and lakes
Skills developed by students:
 Observing, recording, designing, building, and organizing
test results. Developing enthusiasm for investigating land
and water.
Marvelous Math
The children have been excited about
Everyday Math and using the Smart Board!
We will be working on telling time, counting
money (coins and bills), number sequencing,
and addition/subtraction timed math tests.
Flash cards are a great way to help your child memorize their math facts.
Thanks for your help!
Writer’s Workshop
We are jumping right into writing poetry. Students will be writing a
Cinquain poem about amphibians. The kids will also learn how to
write an Acrostic poem.
The students are busy writing in their writing journals
every day as they are learning to use the writing process
and develop their creative writing skills.
Reading, Phonics, Comprehension, & Language
Arts
We have been learning and practicing our procedures for Reader’s Workshop.
Students are building their “stamina” and becoming independent readersreading silently for increased periods of time. They are also practicing fluency
during partner reading time. We will continue these skills and introduce the
remaining rotations- word work, independent writing, and guided reading. I will
be using this time to work with small reading groups-helping them improve their
reading/thinking skills. I will be also giving them suggestions on how to improve
their accuracy, pace, smoothness, and phrasing in their reading.
The students are learning/reviewing their vowel sounds, consonant clusters,
digraphs, and blends. Using these phonetic abilities, decoding and sounding
out words when reading, will improve your child’s independent reading abilities.
The students will be using a dictionary to determine the meaning and
pronunciation of unknown words.
They are being exposed to a variety of text and literature to expand their
vocabulary in language and writing.
We will continue working on writing complete sentences, and using capitalization
and end punctuation correctly. Using commas was recently introduced and we
will continue working on using them correctly in sentences.
Social Studies
We will be learning about communities in Social Studies. Some of our vocabulary
words include: law, government, community, and citizenship.
The students are learning about geography using map skills, reading map keys and
learning the 7 continents, oceans, North America, United States, and a compass
(north, south, east, west).
Technology
We will be visiting the computer lab once a
week. The students will be working on
assessments, educational games, writing class
stories, practicing keyboard functions.
Reminders
Remember to use our class website to find
information on differentiated homework,
FAQs, announcements, etc. (jenksps.org)
Thanks! 
Alexis McGehee