October Already!?!?

I cannot believe that it is going to be October next week!  This school year is flying by!  It has bee a wonderful week for Team Moss!  The students have been working very hard!

Friday Folders

• Home Links Unit 2
• Unit 2 Test will be the week of October 8.  The Home Links are extra practice to do at home if you would like.  They are not required at all.  They are on the bingo board though, so if they do one, make sure to put the date on the bingo board box.  
• Fundations Unit 4
• We started Fundations Unit 4 on Tuesday.  We have been focusing on suffixes this week.  There is practice on suffixes in the packet.  There is also practice on vowel teams.  These also are not required, but can be used as extra practice if your student would like to practice at home.  
• Book It
• From October-March, we will be participating in the Pizza Hut Book-It program.  
• In your student's Friday folder is a letter about the program.
• For student's to receive a free personal pizza coupon, they must read for at least 2 hours each.  There is a reading log included in the Friday folder.  The log must be filled out each month and initialed by parents.  To receive their coupon, they need to bring us the filled out reading log by the first day of the following month (For example: To receive the October pizza coupon, they need to bring their log to us by November 1).  Students may bring in their reading log anytime during the month once they have 2 hours of reading completed.
• This program isn't required, it is just another way to encourage reading.  
• Chicken BBQ Gift Card Donation
• PTA is going to be selling gift cards at the Chicken BBQ Silent Auction again this year.
• Each class is raising money for the gift cards.
• If you would like to donate money to purchase the gift cards, please put it in an envelope labeled "Gift Card Donation."  Please only send in cash, no checks.
• This is simply a donation if you would like, it is not required. 

Important Dates

• October 2: Flu Clinic (forms were sent home in Friday folders a few weeks ago)
• October 10: Bird Day Field Trip
• October 12: Western Day - wear your Western attire
• October 13: Chicken BBQ
• October 16: Early Dismiss at 12:10
• October 17: Picture Re-takes

Spirit Days

RBE will have a special Spirit Day each month.  This is an opportunity to encourage school spirit and a fun time for the students.  Below are the list of Spirit Day for this school year:

• October 12 - Western Day
• November 30 - Pajama Day
• December 14 - "Ugly Holiday Sweater Day"
• January 18 - Hat Day
• February 8 - Decade Day
• March 22 - Sport's Team Day
• April 12 - RBE Shirt/Color Day
• May 17 - Crazy Hair Day

Temperature

• As the temperatures start to cool down (well for this week, not as much next week), it is time to start thinking about jackets.  
• At RBE, we have a temperature guide for when students are expected to wear coats.
• We reviewed the guide with the students this week and have started to tell them the feels like temperature before we go out to recess.  You can click here to see what to wear expectations.
• Please make sure your student has a light jacket with them each day.  Once winter is here, please make sure they have a winter coat.
• Many times, we have not reached the high temperature at our recess time, so students can get cold at recess.

Veteran's Day Assembly-From Mrs. Sharp

Here is the blurb you will see in the newsletter:

**

This year, to honor Military Veterans who are family members of our current RBE staff and students, we will be creating a “Wall of Honor”.  Please see the instructions below to know how to submit a photo to be included in the RBE “Wall of Honor”.

1. Paper copies of photos of Veterans (5 x 7 or smaller) will be accepted as they will not be returned to you. NO ORIGINAL PHOTOS PLEASE!  
2. All paper copies of photos must be turned in to your child’s classroom teacher, Mrs. Sharp or the office by 3:00 p.m. on November 5th, to be included for the “Wall of Honor”.
3. The following information must be written on a “Veteran’s Information Sheet”. These are available in this newsletter (print and fill out), from your child’s classroom teacher, Mrs. Sharp or the office.
4. Please attach the “Veterans Information Sheet” to the photo with a paperclip and place them in an envelope to return to school.
5. If a paper copy of a photo comes in and the “Veterans Information Sheet” is not attached, it may not be included on the “Wall of Honor”.

Please let me know if you have any questions!

Mrs. Sharp

**

Our Learning

Reading

• This week in reading, we worked on defining the word "character."  The students decided that characters are the "who" of a story.  They are the important people, animals or things in a story.  They were also able to identify examples of characters that were people, animals and things.
• Next week, students will be identifying character traits.  We started this discussion this week.  Next week, they will get with a partner and identify character traits for characters in books that have been read aloud books.  

Writing

• We continue to move along with our personal narrative.  This week, we made a descriptive setting, identified characters and wrote our 3 main events.
• Next week, we will rewrite our story to allow us room to add details.  We will also work to add transition words and a conclusion.
• Our goal is to finish our first personal narrative the 2nd week of October.  

Science

• We have been focusing on students being able to describe the three states of matter.  We have learned that states of matter have shape, mass and volume.  Your child should be able to draw what the molecules look like in a solid, liquid and gas.  One of the "I can" learning objectives on our proficiency chart is "I can describe the three states of matter."  The students are doing really well with this objective! 
• Next week, we will be talking about what makes a bird a bird to help us get ready for our Bird Day field trip in a couple of weeks!

Math

• This week in math, we learned about the turn-around rule.  Students learned that the turn-around rule works for addition, but they proved that it doesn't work for subtraction.  Students were able to count backwards on a number line into the negative numbers.  
• Next week, students will come up with multiple ways to represent a number by creating "Name Collection Boxes."  They will also get to identifying what "rule" applies when given a group of numbers and how they have been changed.  
• We will be testing over Unit 2 the week of October 8.

Fundations

• We started Unit 4 in Fundations this week.  We have been focusing on adding suffixes this week.  Students learned when to add -s or -es to a word.  They also learned that -er and -est are used to compare.  They learned that you add -ed and -ing to the end of action words.
• Trick words were sent home in their Take Home Folder with the bingo board, please be practicing these trick words at home.
• Trick words learned so far this year are: please, again, animal, goes, they, said, full, pull, both, one, was, talk, walk, pretty, you, your, done, shall.

Intervention

• Reading intervention starts on Monday.  Be sure to ask your student which teacher they go to for intervention.  Below is a brief description of what his group is working on.
• Ms. Mottaz and Mrs. Ross: We are working with students on Sound Partners.  This is a program that focuses on phonics and decoding skills.
• Mrs Blumberg: She is using a program called Read Naturally.  This program focuses on reading fluently and comprehending what is read.
• Ms. Holbrook: She is working with the students to think deeper about what they have read.  They will also be working on researching topics to create projects to teach others about what they learned.  

I hope that you have a wonderful weekend and get a chance to get out and enjoy this beautiful weather!