Newsletter 1/29-2/5
Dear Families:
This past week was a short but busy week. We continued our study of Wordly Wise
lesson #8 vocab and we will be having a test on the words this Wednesday, February 3rd.
Students also began learning about the American Revolution and the Declaration of
Independence through our reading of Social Studies Weekly and watching Discovery
Education videos. The class had great conversations about the motivations and bravery
of our founding fathers and the colonists to defy Britain in our quest for independence.
This week we will be reading a play about Valley Forge and learning about the "growing
pains" that America experienced in its transition to being a young self-governing country.
In class we continued our read aloud of Ben& Me and practiced the reading strategies of
making an inference, cause and effect, and finding the problem and solution in a story.
Students did a great job of citing examples from Harry Potter and then searching for
examples in Ben & Me.
Thursday, the students used the mini iPads to use a great app called ChatterPix.
ChatterPix is an app that enables users to take pictures and make them talk with the their
voice as a voice over. This is a great app to for mini-presentations. We used the app to
do mini-biographies for signers of the Declaration of Independence. There are some
more great apps that I look forward to introducing to the students over the course of this
semester.
As always, please encourage your student to complete their assignments such as
Accelerated Math and to utilize XtraMath and Ticket to Read. These programs really are
beneficial and have yielded results.
Lastly, report cards were sent home on the 28th along with a form regarding a dental
clinic here at Shepherd. If you are interested in the dental clinic, please return the form
by Monday, February first.
Important Dates:
Wordly Wise Quiz, Wednesday, February 3rd
Have a great week!
Jennifer O'Connor