Week of August 17th, 2015

Dear Parents/Guardians and Students,
We will be continuing on with our pronouns and commas/parentheses/dashes standards from last week. We do have the following two new reading objectives this week though:
-I can determine and summarize the central idea of a passage without stating my own opinion.
-I can analyze how individuals, events, or ideas are introduced, illustrated or elaborated within a text.

This week and next we will focus on writing fundamentals and reading non-fiction text. Please feel free to check students' Reading and Writing notebooks and folders to see what we are working on.

On Friday (8/14) students got a head start on their Spelling work for this week. Again, they will be expected to write each word 4 times and write a sentence using each word. They will also choose between writing a paragraph incorporating 5 or more of the words and writing the definition for each word. All this work should be kept in the part of their Writing notebooks dedicated to Spelling. Spelling tests for last week have either been handed back or will be handed back today. I hope to see better scores this week. The Spelling words for this week are as follows:

• appointment
• culture
• dangerous
• depth
• educate
• excitement
• imagination
• location
• musician
• persuade

My La Paloma email account is temporarily disabled this week, so I may be more difficult to contact at the moment. I am working to resolve the problem. Until then, you can use the Remind 101 app or call the school to leave a message and I will contact you as soon as possible.

Thanks and have a great week!

Ms. Vasquez

Week of August 10th

Dear Parent/Guardian's and Students,

Our Reading Standards for this week are:
"I can determine and summarize the theme without stating my own opinion."
"I can describe how the plot unfolds as a series of events and characters."
Our Writing Standards for this week are:

"I can use commas, parentheses, and dashes to show additional information in a sentence."

" I can use pronouns correctly. I can identify and correct use of pronouns."

  This week we will begin our first Spelling Unit of the year. Students will be expected to keep a Writing Notebook with the first half of the notebook dedicated to spelling and the second half dedicated to notes. On Monday, students will copy down the word list and write each word three times, By Thursday, students will write a sentence for each word, and define all words or incorporate 5 or more into a paragraph.  All work will be kept in Writing Notebooks (which I will look over and grade during formative assessments on Fridays). Most Spelling work will be done during afterschool or at home.

  This week, other homework that is due is a worksheet on roots and affixes (due Tuesday), and a printout on commas (due Wednesday).
  
  Friday, students will have two Reading Formative Assessments and a quick Spelling test. 

 Parents/Guardians, if you have not yet signed up for the "Remind 101" application, please download it onto your smartphone or computer. You can get all reminders about homework, special events, etc. in my class sent to your phone. You can then text to 81010 with the message: @gvasqu 

Thank you!
-Ms. Vasquez