Dear Parents ~

Season’s greetings! Don’t forget that we’re having our holiday celebration this Friday, Dec. 19, at 12:30 p.m. One of our room parents will be contacting you (if they haven’t already) with more information about our party.

The upcoming winter break basically marks the end of the first semester (though the semester doesn’t officially close until Tuesday, Jan. 6). I can’t believe we’re about to wrap up the first half of the year! How quickly this school year is passing. Once we return we’ll be on the downhill side of the term and quickly rolling on toward the CRCTs and the end of the year.
To that end, I’d like to offer a few suggestions to help prepare our students for those critical tests.

1. Assist your students in memorizing their basic multiplication and division facts by drilling them for a few minutes every night, until they are able to respond to questions without thinking. Knowing those basic skills (as well as memorizing basic addition and subtraction), will give them vital tools ~ not only for the CRCT, but for future math classes as well.

2. Have your child read aloud to you several times a week ~ if not every day ~ and “quiz” them about what they’ve read. Ask them to: describe a sequence of events, explain why certain things happen in the story (cause & effect), predict what may happen later on in the story, make connections between events and characters, as well as to other stories they’ve read, shows they’ve seen or to their own lives, etc. It is also helpful if students discuss unfamiliar vocabulary and try to use context clues to help them attempt to figure out a word’s meaning before they look it up.

3. Have your students log on to the state’s online assessment site ~ http://www.georgiaoas.org/ ~ and take both the practice tests and the teacher assigned tests. A math test has already been assigned, and I will be assigning additional tests for them to take in the future.

Please remind students that all make-up work is due this Friday, Dec. 19. Students who received a list of uncompleted work along with their progress reports were given packets of make-up assignments before the Thanksgiving break. These need to be turned in by the end of the week. In addition, I will be sending a letter home on Friday detailing changes in make-up assignment procedures that will begin in January.

Finally, as mentioned in the homework log itself, the 2nd required book report is due on Tuesday, Jan. 6, when students return to school after the holidays. Please remind them to complete this project and any other assignments sent home during the break.

Wishing you the happiest of holidays,
Mrs. Pede