ELA

Throughout the month of January we will be finishing up unit one which focuses on the story My Rows and Piles of Pennies. We will be focusing on vocabulary which will also serve as my students spelling words for the week. I will also reintroduce a few old spelling words each week to their spelling list to assure that they truly remember their past spelling words. Some strategies we will be focusing on throughout this story are characters and the setting. I will also be drawing upon student’s recall of prior learned strategies this year as a way to reinforce their knowledge.

Mathematics

For the month of January I feel that it is very crucial for me to review all content learned up to this point, so that I can gain a better understanding of each student’s strengths and weaknesses. This would help me to establish a baseline so that I can create more effective and meaningful lessons each day. It is very important that I am confident that they have a strong foundation so that they could confidently move on and succeed to their fullest potential.  My goal is to have the class caught up to chapter 4 by the end of January so that we can start with multiplication.

Social Studies

I am very excited to be able to launch a new unit with the class this month. We will be studying China over the course of the next five or six weeks. There will be two aspects to this study, the in class part and the at home part. In class I will be teaching about the country and helping to expand on prior or new knowledge. At home each student will be assigned a topic in which they will have to research and write a report on, along with doing a presentation in class. This will be further explained on the directions that will be given out one day this week.

Science

During the Month of January we will be working on Life Science starting with chapter one. We will aim for completing a chapter about every week and a half to two week. My goal is at the end of this unit to be able to celebrate life and to do that by welcoming eggs into our classroom and allowing the students to watch them hatch into baby chicks!

Religion

During the Month of January we are going to be working on Unit 1 starting with chapter two. We will try to complete a chapter every two weeks or so.

Handwriting

Students will continue to work on their handwriting skills.

Tests

• Spelling tests will be given every Monday (if we have Monday off, test will be given on the next day back).
• ELA tests will be given after the completion of each unit.
• Math tests will always be given after we complete a chapter. Throughout the first we students will get a math test on chapter one (possible chapter two, if not this week than next week) so that I can be sure they understand all the concepts taught. This will continue until we reach chapter four and start learning new material.
• Science tests will be given after we complete each chapter.
• Social Studies tests will be given after we complete each unit.
• Religion tests will be given after each completed chapter
• Handwriting assessments will be at my discretion. I believe students should always be practicing their best and neatest handwriting at all times. In which case when we are working on handwriting I might choose to go around and grade students on their class work.
• Quizzes will also be given at my discretion. They may receive pop quizzes and they may have a short notice ahead of time. In my opinion quizzes should be used as tools to help children to know that they need to work on for their test.