School Days: K First Nine Weeks {Rory}

Rory is loving kindergarten, and I am loving him being with Mrs. Allison and Mrs. Ceci. Those two ladies are wonderful; he is learning so much from them. And his time with Mrs. Sue and Ms. Megan last year really helped prepare him.

He has learned 11 color words and 7 sight words (I, can, the, we, see, a, like). The kinders also reviewed letters A-Z, talked about complete sentences and sentence structure, learned the short A, S, P, T, and M letter sounds, and discussed nouns and verbs. They made marshmallow structures for letter M, spelled words with spaghetti for letter S, built things with popsicle sticks for letter P, and made tin foil towers for letter T. And they started taking spelling tests at the end of the quarter!

They did units on families, baby animals, senses, tools, shapes, and bugs. And he did great on his three assessments this quarter.

He has starting logging every book he reads, either by himself or with us, in his reading log. The kinders are required to read 12 books each month, which means they will have read 100 books by the end of the year. They read in small groups at school a lot to practice, using all sorts of things to make it fun (mustache pointers, magnifying glasses, star pointers, sunglasses, straws, pretzel sticks, toothpicks, bug pointers).

In math he has reviewed numbers 0-20 in both counting and cardinality. He has also learned counting to 100 by 1’s, 5’s, and 10’s.

In religion he has learned about his class saint, Catherine of Siena, the Holy Trinity, creation, the ten commandments, sin, and baptism. They also discussed loving others as God loves them and God’s house, the church. And they met their mass buddies: each of them is paired up with a 6th grader for school masses.

He has also done well in his three enrichment classes: PE, music, and Spanish.

He loves to draw these days, and I love seeing the things he brings home.

They took school pictures on September 20, which came out great.

 

They had five mystery readers the first quarter, as well as a visit from a fire truck!

His behavior has been great so far; he only got on yellow once, for chasing some of his friends around the classroom. He plays and shares well with others. The only things he still needs to work on are his handwriting and working quietly and neatly. We are so proud of him!

School Days: 3rd Grade First Nine Weeks {Riley}

Riley is doing very well in third grade. He actually got Beta Honor Roll for the 1st quarter, meaning he got A’s or B’s in every subject including conduct. And he only got ONE B (in handwriting). We are so proud of him.

And he got third place in his class for having the third most AR points for the quarter: 24.1! He was only required to get 9.

In math, he has learned about place value through thousands, comparing and ordering numbers, rounding, addition properties/patterns, estimating, adding and subtracting three- and four-digit numbers, and subtracting across zeros. In ELA, he has learned about types of sentences, synonyms/antonyms, singular/plural nouns, compound words, metaphors/similes, cause and effect, and multiple meaning words.

In religion, he has learned about his class saints (Saint Kateri and Saint Michael), God loves us and He created the world, learning about God through parables, the promise of a Savior, the Act of Contrition and steps to Reconciliation, and Abraham. In social studies, he has learned all about his home state of Louisiana, how to read a map, graph types, latitude vs. longitude, and the names and positions of all of the continents and oceans.

Third grade is also the year they get a bit more serious about music. They take pre-choir with Mr. Tanner, and they learn how to play the recorder with Mrs. Kessler. So far, Riley can play “Hot Cross Buns,” “Gently Sleep,” and “Merrily We Roll Along” on his recorder. Kenny is quite excited about this!

 

The third graders had a big “How To” project due for ELA in mid-September. They had to demonstrate a skill or task to their class, narrating all of the steps required in sequence, and then write a paragraph about their demonstration. Riley chose to show his class how to make glow-in-the-dark slime. He did great!

Third grade took their very first exams (in ELA and in math) the week of October 8 and did awesome. They celebrated with a sundae party afterwards!

 

He’s already 5 weeks into the 2nd quarter and doing just as well. Only five more weeks to go until Christmas break!