Welcome to the First Issue of the World Famous SERPICO STAR, Guaranteed to Become Your

THE SERPICO STAR Edition 1 August 7 - 11, 2017

Welcome to the first issue of the world famous SERPICO STAR, guaranteed to become your favorite weekly newsletter. At the beginning of each week (or as close to it as I can get), I will send out an email with an attachment outlining the upcoming week’s schedule. I will also include reminders for upcoming tests, projects, and/or North Grove events; I will also post this newsletter to my teacher web page. I know how important communication is. As your child’s teacher, I promise to keep you as informed as I possibly can. If you ever have any questions or concerns please feel free to contact me. Email is the most convenient way to communicate with me, however, I am always just a phone call away should you ever need to speak directly to me.

We are off to a great (and busy) start. In addition to participating in several team building activities, the students have been busy learning classroom procedures and expectations, organizing their supplies and desks, attending a whole school convocation, and getting their school pictures taken. Whew!

I want to encourage parents to utilize my teacher web page. I include a link to it under the signature in all of my emails. You can also access it from the North Grove web page. In addition to posting my weekly newsletter, I will post daily assignments, as well as, classroom photos on it. For those of you that like to use calendars (such as myself), I also have a calendar that I update weekly as well.

Snacks: Our lunchtime this year is 12:40 – 1:00 p.m. If needed, students are allowed to be a small, healthy snack. These snacks must be no more than would fit in a snack-sized Ziploc. Because we have several students in our classroom who have food allergies, snacks that contain nuts of any kind are prohibited. Please, please, please follow this rule!

Background Checks: Any parent who plans to volunteer in the classroom or chaperone field trips must have a current background plan on check on file. Background checks take approximately three weeks to complete. If you plan on volunteering in our building this year, I encourage you to complete the process sooner than later. The cost to complete a check is $12.95. Copy and paste the following link to begin the process:

Great America fundraiser: This past Friday, we kicked off our first and only fundraising event. I would like to encourage everyone to purchase a tub of your favorite cookie dough, a package of your favorite holiday wrapping paper, your favorite chocolate treat or popcorn flavor, or any of the many other items to choose from. All money from this fundraiser goes directly back to North Grove to fund student centered activities. The hardest part of this fundraiser………..….deciding what to buy!

Absences: If your child is going to be absent from school, remember to report their absence to the office (881-5653 option 1). I would greatly appreciate a heads up as well. If you would like for me to gather your child’s assignments just leave me a message (voicemail extension 6226 or email). My prep time is from 9:10-10:00 a.m., which means that I will need this information first thing in the morning. Let me know if you will be picking the assignments up in the office or if you would like for me to send it home with another student. On that same note, if your child has an appointment and will need to be picked up early, please let me know ahead of time so that I can have time to gather their assignments. This will make it less disruptive when it comes time for them to leave.

Our Specials Schedule is as follows: Day 1: Music - Day 2: P.E – Day 3: Library & World Language Day 4: Computer Lab – Day 5: Art.

Early Release Wednesdays will begin this week.

HERE’S WHAT IS GOING ON IN ROOM 26 THIS WEEK:

Literature: We will begin our first novel, Where the Lilies Bloom, this week. Both EL classrooms will be reading this novel, as well as, completing the same assignments & activities. The students, however, will be mixed together. Half will go to Mrs. Pennington classroom and the other half will come to my classroom for Literature. BOTH classes will read chapters 1 – 5 this week and will have a quiz over these chapters next Monday, August 14th.

Math: We will start the year off reviewing the 6 basic Problem Solving strategies (Guess & Check; Draw a Picture; Create a Table or Chart; Work Backwards; Look for a Pattern; and Act it Out). Students will use these strategies ALL YEAR and not just in math! Look for practice problems to come home each evening.

Systems: We will begin our first unit, Plant Structure and Functions on Tuesday. For the first 6 days, students will stay with me in our classroom. The following 8 days, the students will be divided into two groups. 4 of those days will be spent learning about Flowers (with Serpico) and four days will be spent learning about Trees (with Pennington). Just a heads up – students will have a Cell Diagram project assigned on Thursday and will have a quiz over the 6 different life processes on Friday.

Communications: Our Grammar lessons will follow Michal Clay Thompson’s Four-Level Sentence Analysis structure. Level One focuses on the Parts of Speech. Level Two – Parts of a Sentence. Level Three – Phrases, and Level Four – Clauses. We will begin Level One this week. Our vocabulary & spelling words will come from Latin stems as well as words that are found in classic literature. Vocabulary/Spelling tests will take place approx. every 3 weeks (except when we take a break to learn the 50 states & capitals).

Be Respectful; Be Responsible; Be Safe