Weekly Newsletter #15

Friday, June 15th, 2007

Dear Parents,

Now that we are in the final weeks of June, it is time to prepare for Final Exams. The students will have to complete four exams: Spelling/Vocabulary, Writing/Grammar, Reading/Comprehension, and Science.

These exams will focus mainly on the materials we have learned since the mid-term exams, but will include some items from the beginning of the year as well. I will give the students study sheets at the beginning of next week.

This week has been busy, and the students learned a lot of new material. I am happy with their interest level. Geography is interesting to them, as are the studies about Egypt.

Today’s good news is that class 3-1 did very well in the KISQ IED Spelling Bee. 12 students competed from grades 3 and 4, and the wonderful news is that our three girls, Jenny, Vicky, and Sally, did very well. Jenny was the champion! Congratulations to Jenny! Our class has very good spellers. ^ ^

As many parents already know, our class has recently experienced some social problems. Mrs. Choi and I have always made a consistent effort to fix these problems, and we continue to keep a careful eye on how the students interact and treat each other. We try to encourage all students to maintain Christian attitudes, and to examine their behavior. Some days in our class are not so good, but very few are bad. Most days are happy, and this week ended on a positive note. Things are improving. For next week’s Daily English, I want to introduce some positive messages, and this one is my favorites:

“Do unto others, as you would have them do unto you.”

I hope we all can keep this message in mind, as it is important to treat others how we would like to be treated. Respect, sympathy, and individual leadership are things I want the students to try and achieve.

Next Friday there will be no school due to the KISQ Anniversary, so I hope students use this time to study at home for the exams.

Reading/Comprehension

We read the fiction story “From Seed to Plant” which was very similar to what we studied about plants in science. However, it is a bit difficult to read. We are nearly finished our reading book, and I hope to find a new one to order for next semester. For the Reading/Comprhension exam, I will be using two stories: “Hedgehog Bakes a Cake” and “Lemonade for Sale.” Students can begin to review these stories.

Oral/Vocabulary

This week we didn’t study a pop song, and instead focused on geography and Egypt. The students continue to score very high in Weekly Spelling and Daily English.

Writing/Grammar

We had a simple Megaflash “quiz” rather than an official test this week. We studied prepositions and compound words. I will combine these with the final exam.

Geogaphy/History

Students should now know all of the oceans and continents in the world, and be able to spell and label a map. I will test them on this next week. We will continue to learn more facts about Egypt. Since these are not in a book but in handouts that I make, they will always be uploaded to the website. If you are having problems looking at the website, use www.unblockall.net first.

Here are the words for Weekly Spelling next week. These focus on geography and Egypt.

Spelling List

1. language

2. population

3. capital city

4. Arabic

5. climate

6. culture

7. festival

8. survive

9. history

10. sympathy

11. empathy

12. leadership

13. desert

14. nutrition

15. ripen

16. orchard

17. morals

18. explore

19. earth

20. constellation

This weeks Daily English focuses on good behavior, and Egypt:

1. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

2. Friends are like flowers. They need water, sunlight, and soil rich with minerals to grow.

3. To everything, turn, turn, turn, there is a season.

4. Learn from yesterday, live for today, and hope for tomorrow.

5. The pyramids were built to match the star constellation Orion.

6. It took more than 80 years and 30,000 workers to finish building the pyramids.

7. Some people think aliens built the pyramids.

8. I promise to be kind to my classmates.

9. I promise to try my best.

10. Respect your classroom like you would respect your home.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Regards,

Mr. Garrioch