James did very well in class today. We took some time at the beginning of the lesson to practice plural nouns ending in y (city - cities) and to correct his sentences from this week.

James did very well reading the story and with the slide activities. We practiced making sentences with the sight words and James identified errors in verb usage in my sentences.

Excellent work today.

Thanks,

Katie.

Note: I am so sorry about being late today. I don't know why I was confused about the time and read my schedule wrong. Please tell James, "Thanks for waiting for me."

Frances did very well in class today. She knew the story of the Animal Boogie and participated very well with me when reading. She practiced the long and short /a/ vowel sounds and read the phonics words with assistance. 

James did a great job today in class. We began by taking up the unit test, James earned a perfect score! We did a reading comprehension activity and James answered the questions following the story forming sentences in the simple present and future tenses.

Great work from both James and Frances today. Thank you and I will see Frances tomorrow. 

Ms. Katie.

Cynthia did very well today in class. We discussed characters, setting and how a character's feelings can change throughout a short story. Cynthia planned a short story with me and when I finish my morning classes I will add the planning slides to the homework task for this week. She can use these planning slides to write her story. I will create a second task for her to read chapter 5 of "My Father's Dragon" and answer two comprehension questions. 

Thank you,

Ms. Katie.

Hi,

James did a great job today with the reading. He seemed to enjoy the book and read very well independently. The first activity of the slides was a drawing activity and we sort of got stuck there while James perfected his drawings. If you would like to finish the slide activities for extra practice I have included the link as task 3.

Thanks,

Ms. Katie.

Frances did well today in class. At times she was a bit distracted but with redirection she got back to work. Frances and I read "Is Your Mama a Llama?" and she did well identifying the animal words. Frances helped to look for rhyming words with me.

She did well on her slide activities. 

Thanks,

Ms. Katie. 

Cynthia did a great job in class today. We began with a reading of chapter four of our story. I included this chapter in the homework in case she would like to review it. Cynthia was able to answer comprehension questions about what she read and did a great job with each. We also looked at some of the harder vocabulary words in our story. She did very well  matching each word with the correct definition. 

Cynthia began learning about 'similes.'  We use similes in our writing to make it more interesting. A simile is a comparison with 'like' or 'as.' She did a great job making her own similes about a favorite teacher and her best friend. 

Great job today from Cynthia.

Thanks,

Ms. Katie.

Frances did an excellent job in class today and participated very well. I read the story today and she participated in the parts of the story that were repeated throughout. In her after reading activities Frances and I practiced listening and deciding if we heard the /ch/ sound or /sh/ sound in different words. Frances did very well with this activity. As the books become a bit more difficult for Frances we will focus on using the post-reading activities to enforce and practice phonics and reading skills. 

Frances does very well in her classes and is a joy to teach.

Thanks,

Ms. Katie.

Cynthia did very well in class today. She was attentive and worked hard to help brainstorm ideas for her next writing assignment. This week, Cynthia will write a fantasy story. I have put her planning ideas and the slides from today's lesson with the homework assignment.

Cynthia did an excellent job reading the third chapter of My Father's Dragon and was able to answer two discussion questions. If she wishes she could read chapter three again. We will move on to chapter four in class next week.

Thank you,

Ms. Katie.

James did an excellent job in class today. He read the book very well and he worked to sound out the words 'helicopter' and 'railway.' James completed several sentences on his own and played a game at the end of class to practice using verbs correctly in the simple present tense. Thank you,

Ms. Katie.

Frances did well today in class. She was attentive and participated in all activities. At times Frances can become discouraged and not want to read, I find if there are many words on a page or words that she feels she can not read she will not try. Today, we tried breaking apart the text into smaller sections so they were not so overwhelming for her. She did well with the sight words in the activities and she can continue to practice  reading them.  

Great work from Frances today in class. 

James did a great job today in class. His spelling homework was perfect and he did well with a practice dictation of his spelling words. James is learning about the soft /c/ and /g/ sounds such as in the words 'face' or 'page.' He did well in his phonics lesson. James was able to read a story independently and we looked at cause and effect in the story. 

Excellent work today from James.

Thank you and see you next week,

Ms. Katie.

Cynthia did a great job today. I had her read another chapter of the story My Father's Dragon and she read very well and showed good comprehension. Cynthia and I talked about the elements of the story and she did well identifying the setting and characters. We also looked at different types of story endings. 

This week Cynthia's homework is a bit different in that she will read the first two chapters of the story we have been reading in class and answer the questions in the reading journal. This is a  nice story and it helps to give Cynthia some examples of the story elements we have been discussion the last few weeks in class. She will have another creative writing activity for homework next week.

Thank you and see you next week,

Ms. Katie.

It was great to have James in the class today. He did well with his reading of The Animal Boogie and the book activities. Today, we looked a lot at long and short /a/ vowel sounds. After a short review and practice James did a great job reading and sorting the words. He went on to sort words with the long /a/ and /e/ vowel sounds and sorted all words correctly. Excellent work from James today. 

Thanks,

Ms. Katie.

It was nice to see Francis today in class. She did very well reading the story today. This book was more at her level and I think she felt more confident to read and participate fully. We did several phonics activities after reading the story and Francis worked on reading words with the 'tr' and 'br' blends at the beginning. 

Excellent work from Francis today. We started using stars and rabbit pictures as motivation and this worked very well. Francis earned 5 stars today! Awesome!

Cynthia did a great job in class today. She participated very well and wrote a great little piece for her timed writing. Cynthia created a character to write about for this week's homework assignment. She did very well with last week's writing and included all of the details we discussed in class. Great work today from Cynthia.

Congratulations Cynthia on your piano win!!! 

James did very well in class today. He read the book independently and needed few reminders about the long /a/ vowel sound in words such as 'graze' 'behave' and 'cave.' After one reminder while reading he went to read each word correctly during the slide activities. 

James did a great job with all slide activities and participated very well.

Thank you,

Ms. Katie.

Francis did very well in class today. She was attentive and participated in the after reading activities. Today's book was a bit more difficult and I hoped Francis and I could do a 'popcorn' reading of it. She found a lot of the vocabulary difficult and became discouraged. When Francis reads at home she can share the reading. She could do the reading for Lulu as it repeats throughout the book. We focused on the sight words and that could also be a good practice for Francis. She could practice making sentences for the sight words or reading and writing each word. 

Great work today Francis.

Thank you,

Ms. Katie.

Cynthia did very well in class today. We focused on how we can describe the setting of a story. She worked hard to come up with different adjectives to describe how a place could look. I encourage Cynthia to think about all of the senses when writing about setting. This week she will write about a beach and she knows that a beach has different smells and sounds than other settings. 

Excellent work from Cynthia,

Thanks,

Ms. Katie.

Cynthia did a great job today in class. We worked on using adjectives to describe characters in our stories. She can help the reader to visualize the characters by using adjectives and descriptive words. I encourage Cynthia to think of personality traits that she could use in her story, maybe the character is always angry or does not trust others, maybe there is a backstory as to why they are scared of cats or don't like school. 

Cynthia created a description of a character (a girl names Anna). She will write a short story (a page or less) about the character she created. 

Frances did well in class today. She was reluctant to read the book on her own but she participated very well in all activities. Frances was able to complete a series of sentences with words from the book. She recalled all of the important details from the story. Excellent work today from Frances. Thank you and have a nice vacation, Ms. Katie.

Cynthia did a great job in class today. We began looking at short stories and she read about and we discussed what a good short story needs. Cynthia learned a bit about plot, setting, and characters. This lesson had a lot of new information for Cynthia and we will spend the next few lessons looking at each aspect of the short story a little closer. Cynthia can try to write her own short stories and I look forward to reading them. In Cynthia's homework this week I left the directions to start her own story.

Thank you and see you next week,

Ms. Katie.