Curriculum

Refer to this page for current information on what your child is learning!

=Language Arts:= We continue to use two reading programs, Joe and Joan, and Primary Phonics. The readers that you see come home periodically are from the Primary Phonics reading program. The program is excellent and features photocopied readers and skills books to go with each story. Students are to read the book to two people at home, have them sign the back page, remove the back page and return it to school. I will then give them two dollars in classroom money for returning it. Your child may not be on the same reader as another friend in our class since the students are grouped according to ability and progress through the readers as they are ready. I work with each group each day. Students benefit greatly from small group work.

The second program we use is the Joe and Joan program. This program focusses on a phonics code. Learning the code helps students use clues to sound out words. For example we teach that /oa/ says /oh/ like Joan. If you visit the classroom you will see the code up on our "soundboard" depicted with picture clues.

Mrs. Shaw is our language aide this year and she works with the Joe and Joan reading series which works on the code principal that we teach in the classroom. Students go to her each day in small groups and really benefit from the small group attention.

=Math:= We are working on showing numbers in math right now. This is chapter 4 in our math program. Students learn different ways to depict numbers. For example, we can print the numeral "9", we can print the number "nine" and we can draw a picture of nine things.

=Spelling:= We have completed lesson 7, and have suspended the spelling program until the new year. We still spell at the end of each day though! We love getting a treat from the monkey jar!!

=Science:= We finished our unit on color. We did a great experiment called "Rainbow Milk". Ask your child about it, it was so fun! I also sent home a picture of our experiment and instructions on how to recreate it at home. Try it! Next we will be doing a unit on the Five senses.

=Social:= Currently we are working on a unit about belonging in our world. We have talked about groups that we belong to and what clues we can use to decide what a group is. Also in this unit is some work on mapping. We will continue on with this in the new year.