Updates 4/11/11 - 4/15/11

Good evening parents and students! This is going to be a challenging week for all of us! At Mr. Strickland's request, I will be administering the FCAT test to a third grade class who's teacher is out on maternity leave. This means that there will be a substitute teacher in my class on Monday - Wednesday mornings and all day on Thursday. I have already talked to the students about it and they are prepared. We are flipping our day around a bit so that I can teach the reading in the afternoons. We have a couple of reading tests to take next week and I prefer to give them the tests myself. We also have been asked to keep the students off of the playground for the four days of FCAT testing as some students will be testing all day and the noise from the playground may disturb them. That being said, PLEASE give them as much outside time at home in the afternoons as you can. Fresh air is so critical to all of us! We will be doing some fun activities inside the classroom during the time that we would normally be playing outside.

There were quite a few students who struggled with the spelling test this week. The words are getting much harder, so please make sure to go over the words with them many times throughout the week. We are working on them at school as well, but the reinforcement from home really helps!

The diorama projects were WONDERFUL!! I can tell that the students (and parents) worked very hard on them. I took pictures of all of the students with their dioramas and I will post them on the blog by the end of the week.

Have a wonderful week and the secret word for the week is PATIENCE!!