A Sweet New Year!

Hello wonderful families! We had a short but sweet week here at CJDS. Today our fifth graders presented us with a fabulous Rosh Hashanah presentation and Morah Bracha lead us through our CJDS songs. It was such a special time for us to join together and celebrate the New Year!

Math
We had math all three days this week and we worked on writing addition stories, learning our addition facts, and the + 9 shortcut! When you need to add 9 to a number, it’s much easier to add 10 and go back 1! This is a + 9 shortcut that awesome mathematicians can use! Students received their First in Math usernames and logins this week. They are located in the front of the students’ planners. We have already had two Players of the Day, who got to wear the Player of the Day badge!

Reading
This week we are focusing on comparing and contrasting characters and events in the stories we read. The students began reading a story called My Family about a young girl named Camila. They made Venn Diagrams comparing and contrasting their families and Camila’s. Today, we read one of my favorite books, The Other Side by Jaqueline Woodsen, and compared and contrasted the two main characters Annie and Clover. We have begun the grammar skill of writing in complete sentences. Last week we studied identifying subjects and predicates, and now we are putting those subjects and predicates together to make sentences. For example: Mrs. Felter is a subject, a “who or a what”, and “loves Rosh Hashanah” is a predicate because love is an action. Put them together and you have a complete sentence: “Mrs. Felter loves Rosh Hashanah!” We will continue with these skills and our same vocabulary words next week.

Razkids usernames and passwords are in the front of the students’ planners as well. Reading on Razkids for 20 minutes each night can count for the students’ nightly reading homework. This is a great website for getting your child to read a variety of books! The students’ level on the website will appear higher than their reading levels in class. If you have any questions about reading levels please let me know.

Spelling
Each week I will staple the students words lists and post tests in their planners. Feel free to take them out and keep them at home (many students like to keep them on the refrigerator!) Our spelling words this week focus on the short and long “e” sound. For example, words like peel, heat, left, and easy. We will continue with these words next week as well.

Odds and Ends
I am encouraging students to bring a sweater or jacket to keep in the classroom for chilly days. This is the season when recess time can be a completely different temperature than it was before school, and I want to keep everyone happy and healthy!

I hope everyone has a very sweet New Year. If you are traveling please be safe. I look forward to working with your fantastic kids in the New Year!