January 28, 2010

Ray’s Ramblings
January 28, 2010

Hopefully, by the time you read this, we will have had a wonderful day celebrating our 100th day of school! I can’t believe how quickly this year is going! Thank you to all who completed the Family 100 Project. They are displayed in the hall!

ASSESSMENT: We have spent the last three weeks working very hard on our mid-year assessments. Your child has taken the mid-year ELA (Early Literacy Assessment). I am very pleased with the scores I am seeing! You should be, too! I am sending these scores home today. Please look at the comparison to the beginning of the year scores to see how much your child is learning. This can also give you an idea of what areas your child needs to work on! Please read the explanation of the test on the back and PLEASE schedule a conference with me to answer any questions you may have. The expectation is for your child to score above a 60 and register a DRA score of 3 or above by the end of the year! In order to take the DRA test, your child must have a score on the ELA of 60 or above and know 8 or more sight words (on the word recognition section of the test). If these conditions were not met, they were not given the DRA.

TRANSITIONING: We are now more than half-way through the school year. We will be pushing very hard from this point on to get your child ready for first grade! We started going through the cafeteria line this week. We have not started punching in our cafeteria numbers yet. We will begin that on Tuesday. Our days to go through the line are Tuesday and Thursday. Please be working with your child to learn their account number!

SAFETY CONCERNS FROM THE GYM – Mrs. Rhoades would like to remind everyone that it is important to wear sneakers or tennis shoes on gym days. I have seen an increase in our kiddos wearing those “Ugg style” boots to gym class. They do not offer the support or tread that a tennis shoe does. We have had more slips and falls when our kiddos wear these types of shoes. So for the safety of our students, I’m asking that tennis shoes be worn on gym days. OUR GYM DAY IS WEDNESDAY!!! Thanks so much! - Melissa Rhoads

NOTE FROM COMPUTER LAB: Dear Parents, our Cookie Dough Fundraiser is about ready to begin. Order forms will be sent home with your student on Friday February 5th. The sale will end on February 19th with an expected delivery date of March 22, just in time for spring break and Easter. The earnings from this fundraiser will go towards the purchase of technology. More details will be sent home along with the sales brochure. Thank you for participating in our school fundraisers.


ONE-CALL: The Village has begun using the One-Call system to inform parents of upcoming events and important messages. You should have received phone calls every night this week reminding you of our daily theme for “Count Me In Week”. If you have NOT been receiving these calls, please let me know. If you have students at other schools in the district, this should not be new to you!  We are just a bit slow getting this service!

BOOK ORDERS: The January Book orders should have gone home yesterday. I am including the February Book orders in today’s packet. Please return the orders NO LATER THAN NEXT THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 4!!! Please do NOT send cash!!! Send only checks or money orders made out to Scholastic Books. You may always order online using a credit card! To order online, go to the Web address below and enter our class’s personalized user name and password in the sign-in fields on the right side of the page. Note: You do not need to create your own user name and password

www.scholastic.com/bookclubs
User Name: carlaraysclass
Password: JELV

JANUARY HOMEWORK PACKETS ARE DUE TOMORROW!!! February packets will go home on Monday. Please begin to send in 2-3 evidences of kidwriting each week!!! It is very important that your child is routinely using their writing skills at home! Most students are now writing 3+ sentences at a time when we write! Have them write, putting the sounds they hear on paper. Use the phonics song sheet and the word wall words for quick reference. They know how to use these tools! After they do the kidwriting, you supply the ‘adult writing’ under the kidwriting and compare with your child. For example it could look like this:

I hav a dog. He is brn and whit. We like to pla bal aftr skul
_________________________________________________

I have a dog. He is brown and white. We like to play ball after school.

Praise every sound they hear! Some children like to count “points”. All children should have a copy of our word wall and our phonics song at home to use as a reference when writing. I am sending our Chunk Song home today. We are starting to reference this song in our writing. When they hear a chunk, they should refer to this page to find the ‘chunks’. IF YOU HAVE LOST OR MISPLACED THE OTHER SHEETS, PLEASE LET ME KNOW AND I WILL SEND ANOTHER COPY TO YOU.