September 27

As the week draws to a close I would like to share a few things that we have been doing in the classroom this week. This week has been kind of a catch up/review week.  Each day we have been talking about a certain aspect of reading and reviewing our phonics.  We have been reviewing characters, setting, the order of a story and the author's purpose.  Each day your students have picked a book that they have read out of their book bags and done a small activity to reflect these topics.  We will always be reviewing these topics as we read stories throughout the year.  Today we read "Chimpansneeze" and talked bout the author's purpose.  We came to the conclusion that the purpose was to tell us a funny story and to entertain. We also touched on what poetry was and how it tends to use rhyming words.  Next week we will be talking about the main idea.  I have also been meeting with each student individually to make some assessments and talk to them about their fluency and sight words.  As you read with your students remind them of voice inflection with exclamations and questions.  I have also noticed that some of us need to slow down when we read or try to read in a more consistent manner.  I am also going to start sending home a new reader this next week.  It is hard to believe that we are already on our second book.  It has a rabbit on the cover.  You may see the first book, the one with the mouse on the cover, come home for extra practice.  If your student can read every story in that book fluently with very little mistakes then they are right on target.  We are stressing reading because it is needed for everything, even math.  This week we are also going to begin some more intensive writing.  We are going to begin to talk about the 6 ways to write.  We will also be talking about adjectives.  Today we talked about proper nouns and sentences needing capital letters and punctuation marks.  I believe we have finally mastered the topic of capital letters and punctuation marks.  In math we have been talking a lot about place value.  We are focusing on ones and tens.  Tomorrow we are going to introduce the topic of adding the tens and ones in more ways than one to make a number.  For example, take the number 34.  You can make 34 by 30 + 4 = 34, 20 + 14 = 34 and 10 + 24 = 34.

ps-Just a reminder that next week is a shorter week.  There is no school on Friday.  Enjoy the Fall Festival if you make it down there!

A special Thank You!

I wanted to say thank you to the families that came out last night and supported Oak Hill and the Aces. Unfortunately the Aces could not hold on to be Kentucky but everyone who attended and braved the nippy weather had fun and enjoyed a great soccer game.

Midweek and a chance to cheer on the Aces!

Hello everyone!  I want to first off thank those that ordered from our scholastic book order.  I am working on sending those orders in and they should be here sometime early next week.  I know some of the kids are excited to get something new to read.  Speaking of reading, I have been really stressing this week the importance of reading and the author's purpose.  Today we read the soccer story in our book and determined why the author would write something like he did.  We have been talking all week about the author's purpose.  We have also been talking about ways to read with a partner.  Today we talked about cross checking.  Cross checking is where a partner asks some questions to make sure you know what is going on in the story.  I have also talked about I read, you read.  The ultimate goal in this is to build stamina, make reading fun and increase comprehension as well as fluency.  I explained that your partner is there to help you with the words you are not sure about.  We have been good at this thus far.  I hope to continue this practice.  By doing this will also allow me to walk around the room and/or meet with students one on on in order to meet everyone's needs.  If you are reading at home tonight, practice the I read, you read and ask you students what EEK means, or use the cross checking method.

Here is an important announcement from the Aces Soccer team and Mrs. Shanks,
Oak Hill School has been invited to the U of E ACES Soccer game this Saturday, September 22, beginning at 7:00 p.m., at Arad McCutchan Stadium. U of E ACES will be playing the Kentucky Wildcats. All Oak Hill Elementary School students and families will receive 1 FREE youth admission with the purchase of an adult ticket. Adult Tickets are only $3.00. Students will get to enjoy inflatables too!!! Several schools around the Tri-State are in competition for the HIGHEST SCHOOL attendance. If our school WINS, we will receive NEW GYM equipment for all of your children to enjoy! Please join us this Saturday!

I am going to be there cheering on my Alma mater!!  Go Aces!!  I hope to see you there!! 
The Aces are doing well this year they are they are 4-1 and Kentucky is 2-4. 

Things to look out for

Don't worry nobody in our room is in trouble.  I have a few things from others that need to be shared as reminders of what is going on here at Oak Hill.  Of course they sent them to me on Monday and I don't want to wait and put them in the newsletter on Friday.

From Mrs. Shanks,

A friendly reminder that parents need to send any dismissal changes with each one of their children so that we know what each child is doing.  When it is sent with one child, we will assume that dismissal procedure is only for that child.  Also, please send notes in on a separate piece of paper instead of writing it into the agenda.  Another reminder is to always check out their child even if it is after dismissal. If the child is assigned to go to daycare, then check them out at daycare so that we know that child is safe.  We are responsible for our children until they reach their home.

From Mrs. Work,

October 1
Art to Remember forms will be coming home.  This is an opportunity to purchase a keepsake with your child's art work, ex. ceramic tiles, calendars, bookmarks and many more options.  The children will create the art projects in school during their art time.  These keepsakes are made in Indianapolis and are the highest quality of any company in the industry.  The orders will be back by Thanksgiving.  They make wonderful gifts and are a great way to treasure children's artwork forever.  We hope you enjoy this program and thank you for supporting Oak Hill. For questions, please contact Alice Work, alice.work@evsc.k12.in.us.

Also, there was a yelllow PTA newletter sent home with your students today.  In the newsletter are some was to stay involved in the school and in the classrooms.  I know there is a small write up about how the library needs some volunteers.  If you are able to volunteer please email Tara Bradley at t.arab@hotmail.com.  The newsletter is full of dates to remember as well.

If you have any questions let me know!

Thanks,

Mr. Moreland

Monday the 10th

Today was a busy day for us and we had a first today.  We finally got to go to the library!  We got to check out 1 book of our liking.  I have told the students that they may take the book home or keep it with them in their book bags so they may read it when they have a chance.  Everyone was excited to get a book to their liking.  Our classroom does not have quite the selection as the library.

This week we are focusing in on words that have an "r" blend in them such as grab, trick, brick, drip, and trap.  Your students should also be able to recognize the short vowel sounds.  If you have some extra time, practice sounding out some "r" blend words and see if your student can get them.

Also, tomorrow we will begin making our compost bags.  Make sure you bring in some kind of organic material such as, leaves, peelings, egg shells, small sticks, pine needles, or even some dead bugs.  We will put this into our bag with some soil and worms.  The worms will eat away at the organic material making it turn into humus.  We will take a few weeks and watch this happen and make some observations.  Tomorrow will be a fun day in the science world!!

Compost Needed

Parents, this week we will be making our own compost bags.  I need your help collecting things to put into the bag.  On Tuesday if you could send in some leaves, sticks, table scraps, peels, egg shells or whatever else you can find to make a compost bag would be great.  We are going to discuss what decomposers are and how they break down the things in the soil.  We are even going to put worms in the bags as well so we can make some observations about how the worms help break things down.

I apologize for not getting this up sooner but I have finally gotten my power restored from Friday night's storm.  This week is going to be a fun week as we talk about pets in our guided reading and we begin to talk about nouns as well as investigate all kinds of soils.  Hope you have enjoyed your weekend and I look forward to seeing everyone's smiling faces on Monday!

Thursday's Math Homework

Today is Thursday and it is supposed to be math homework night.  Your students probably do not have any homework with them.  Don't get mad at them, it is my fault.  We were working so hard taking a look at soils and what kind of organic and inorganic matter is in the soil that I forgot to send the math homework home.  If you could please practice counting, get to at least 85 in a minute, and do some quick math facts, that would be just fine.  Again I am sorry and I will make sure it gets home next time. 
Thanks for your cooperation!!
Mr. Moreland

Wednesday, Sept. 5th

As I am sitting here watching the kickoff of the NFL season and grading a few papers, I thought I would give you a quick look at what we have been doing.  Today we talked about characters in a story. When you read about them, you have to know what their names are and what they are doing.  While we were practicing our read to self, we got a chance to draw a character or two from the stories we were reading.  I was really impressed with not only the drawings, but the writings that the students are doing.  One student wrote me a few sentences about Wall-E, and another wrote about the characters in Brave.  I loved what they did today!  The students have also been excited to be reading the books they got at Barnes and Noble last Friday.  In math we played a review game over the first chapter in our math lessons.  We will have a short assessment tomorrow.  If they do as well on the assessment as they did on the review game, then I will have an easy time grading them.  I was impressed yet again as they worked together to come up with the right answers.  The highlight for the day, your kiddos will tell you, was our introduction to our science lesson.  We passed out our science journals and talked about inorganic and organic matter.  We also talked about how dead things in soil is known as humus.  Tomorrow we are going to make some observations about soil and really get a hands on look at what soil really is.  The students are going to do most of the teaching and I will be there for some guidance.  We are going to talk about their discoveries.  It is going to be fun!!  At the end of our science lessons we will be making our own compost.  (It is in the near future.)  If you are looking for some extra things to do at home, you can always read or practice counting. Today we started counting by 2's, 5's and 10's.  Our goal is to skip count to 120 using 10's and 5's.  Well, that is all for this evening.  Look for the next update on Friday!



p.s.  Go Broncos!!, beat the Steelers in week #1

Barnes and Noble Field Trip

This past Friday we enjoyed our field trip to Barnes and Noble.  We got a chance to hear a story, "Zoozical",  and make the hippo from the story.  This event helped us kick off our reading for the year.  All of the students were also allowed to pick out one book.  The kids were really excited and we had a few extra seconds to look around.  The staff at Barnes and Noble did a wonderful job getting things organized and helping the students get excited about reading.  In class we are working on reading to ourselves.  Some students have chosen to put the book they got in their book bag to read and others have chosen to take it home to read.  Either way works for me as long as we are improving our reading.       I hope everyone is enjoying their weekend and enjoys sleeping in one more day!  I do want to apologize for not sending home the spelling words on Friday.  I was trying to cram some things in the afternoon since we did not have much of a morning.  I am sorry and they will be sent home on Tuesday.
Thanks,
Mr. Moreland