More Beautiful Music!

Wednesday we had another special treat...a visit from some Jacksonville Symphony members. We learned about the difference between several stringed instruments including their size and range of tones.

Parkwood Family Night at McDonalds

Thanks!!

A big thank you to Hunter's Mom for sending in the supplies for the classroom! Today your child brought their high frequency words home in an index card case. Please have them put all of their word cards in there for safe keeping. Remember, your child should practice reading them nightly!

High-frequency words are the words that appear most often in printed materials. Just three words I, and, the account for ten percent of all words in printed English.
High-frequency words can be hard for students to remember because they tend to be abstract. They can't use a picture clue to figure out the word with. And phonics clues don't always work either.
Learning to recognize high-frequency words by sight is critical to developing fluency in reading. Recognizing these words gives students a basic context for figuring out other words. Once they recognize the, they can predict with amazing accuracy what the next word will be.

Some students have said that their cards got thrown away (accidentally, I am sure!).
Please let me know if you would like a list of all words introduced so far this school year.

Strong Kids!

Three friends showing off their footballs from Coach for doing the most push ups at PE today...way to go!!

Cool Jazz at Parkwood

The students really enjoyed a performance today by the River City Jazz Band. We heard some really nice music and learned about the keyboard, drums, saxaphone and bass. Ask your child about where Jazz began (New Orleans). They might even do some scat singing for you!

Five-in-a-Row

Today in Math Workshop the students played a game called Five-in-a-Row. This game is a variation of the game Bingo. The focus point of this game is finding the total of two or more quantities up to a total of 12, by counting on, counting all, or using number combinations.

A Busy Week!

When partner reading the students choose a book, take turns reading and discuss the book when finished.


The students are responsible for logging one book that they read during Readers Workshop. During a reading conference, I will refer to this list when asking a child about their reading.


Practicing the "Turn and Talk" strategy during a Read Aloud. We use this strategy throughout the day in all subjects. All students get a chance to be heard and stay focused on the lesson. Students that tend to be reluctant to speak to the entire class find speaking to one classmate a little easier.


Following our anchor lesson in Readers Workshop, "Responding to Texts", the students wrote and illustrated their first reading response.


Taking our first assessment...a calendar math pre-assessment.