Welcome back
& Happy New Year! We hope you had a refreshing Christmas break. Thank you
for your generosity toward us. The precious cards, kind words, gift cards,
sweets, gifts, and monetary donations made us feel loved and appreciated.
We look forward to finishing the last half of
the school year strong. As you saw in our email, we are excited to tailor our
blog to our class due to the two 3rd-grade classes being separated.
This will allow us more freedom in customizing the lessons and notes to our
class.
We have a new
student who will be joining our class this semester. His name is Philip Isum.
We know our students will welcome him with open arms because that’s just how
they are!
What’s happening at Fortis?
1/10 Mom’s in Prayer 9am
1/17 Spirit Day
1/17 Mom’s in Prayer 9am
1/17 NEST Meeting 9am
1/19 Science Fair (Upper School)
Blog Abbreviations-
HIG-Singapore Home Instructor Guide
TB- Textbook (Math and Shurley Grammar)
WB- Singapore Math Workbook
MM-Mental Math (Found in the back of the HIG)
HW-Handwriting
IEW- Institute for Excellence in Writing
PB-Shurley English Practice Booklet
USE-Usborne Science Encyclopedia
Math-
We start off the week with sharpening our skills in adding
and subtracting mentally. We move into multiplication by tens and hundreds by
the end of the week. Please continue to have your child practice math facts at
home. We have 2 students who have mastered all 4 facts sheets and a few more
who are so close! Whoo Hoo! Knowing these facts will greatly help with speed
and accuracy!
Handwriting-
We will be frequently taking a completion grade for the
handwriting assignments. Please have your child bring their book to and from
school each day from here on out.
Continue to watch for proper letter formation of cursive and
print letters at home. If your child is struggling with handwriting, encourage
him/her to slow down. It takes time and patience to write neatly. Students will
begin writing all final drafts in cursive this semester.
IEW-
Important- all final drafts must be written in cursive for
the remainder of the year.
Students will be writing their rough draft for Busy Beavers
on Tuesday. Please check their rough
draft with a red pen (if possible) for spelling, punctuation, dress-ups
(underlined AND labeled), paragraph indentation, double spaced, make sure their
title reflects 2-3 keywords from the final clincher, etc. They will be writing
their final draft on Wednesday and Thursday. They should turn their paper in on
Monday 1/15, stapled in this order: checklist, final draft, rough draft.
Students can earn up to 3 points extra credit for using this lessons vocabulary
words in their paper (fortress, sound, construct). Vocabulary words should be
underlined and labeled “voc” in the right margin. Students may use some creativity in their
story, as long as the theme remains.
Shurley-
We begin Chapter 16 this week. Shurley tests will be
administered in class on Monday’s moving forward. Please skip vocabulary time on all lessons.
Reading-
We begin “The Cabin Faced West” this week. Please have your
student briefly orally re-tell what they read to you on home days to solidify
comprehension. We will continue our class discussions as we navigate
friendships, hard work, and circumstances that turn out different than we
anticipated. We will dig deep to see what Jesus says about these important
topics vs. how we might respond to them.
Memory-
We are currently working on Matthew 5:1-9, Try, Try Again poem,
Oceania map & song, Reaction poem and history timeline song.
Geography-
We will be testing on Oceania on Wednesday. Students will be
given a word bank and will be asked to name and point to locations on the map.
Introduction to Former USSR map on Wednesday.
Have a blessed
week!
