January 15

Dear parents,
     The blog is back up thanks to Mark with the district tech department. Way to know your stuff, Mark!

     FYI better come first:
• This Friday for the Michael Ballam concert, be sure your child is here on time. We will load the busses at 9:00 sharp.

• January 27th, a Monday: PTA Family Movie Night will be at the downtown theater. There will be two sessions. One at 4:30 and one at either 7:00 or 7:30. This is free for South Elementary families.
Keep an eye open for a note from the PTA to see what the movie(s) will be.

• Arts Night will be on March 17th if your child is interested in performing or creating an art piece.

• February 28th: Remember the spelling bee for our school. If you have misplaced the original list and are interested in working with your child, you can copy off another list by going to the school web page and downloading it. If it is the same as past years, we will be having a spell off in class first for those who want to compete. The two top spellers will represent our class in the school spelling bee.

• NO SCHOOL on Monday for the Martin Luther King recess.

Curriculum:
• reading - We are testing DIBELS, benchmarks, and progress monitoring so we can send home the latest and greatest scores on the progress report.

• language - The students are learning/reviewing contractions.

• math - Chapter 4 has the children learning different strategies for adding 2 and 3 digit numbers. For the last week we have been working on different bases using manipulatives to learn the process for regrouping/borrowing and carrying. We are now working strictly in base 10. Tomorrow will be our first day without using manipulatives. Cross your fingers for a great outcome!!!!!

• science - Friday we begin our unit on weather. It is wonderful and filled with homework-in-a-baggie things for the whole family to make and experiment with. I hope you enjoy it as much as the kids. We can't make simple weather instruments and leave them out here at school. Other kids would destroy them in two seconds flat. So the kids can make them and enjoy them at home.

• Spanish - We are just finishing up the days of the week. Then we'll begin weather words. Mrs. Whitney is working with them on reading in Spanish. She is GREAT!!!!!

• History - We will conclude our history lesson about the times of Martin Luther King, segregation, etc. on Friday. Hopefully the students leave this unit with the inherent desire to see equality and freedom reign in our country.

Have a marvelous week!
Carolyn Olenslager