Elementary Weekly News
mClass: Teachers in grades K-3 will begin conducting the mClass reading assessment with each individual student during the week of Sept. 21. The teachers will schedule a set time to meet with each student to conduct this assessment. This data will help us determine what reading skills our students have mastered and what reading skills we need to provide more assistance. All mClass assessments will be completed by October 9.
Progress Reports: The first 2020-2021 Voyager Progress Reports will be issued to all parents on Friday, Sept. 18. Please contact your child’s teacher if you have any questions, concerns, or ideas.
Parent Conferences: VAES will begin hosting Fall Parent Conferences on September 25 and the week of Sept. 28. Details will be coming from your child’s teacher. Can you believe it is time for progress reports? Each family will sign up to participate in a virtual meeting with your child’s teacher during this time. Thank you so much for your partnership.
Parts of Speech Fall Scavenger Hunt: Children will love this fall scavenger hunt that gets them up and moving while learning about the parts of speech. If the beautiful fall weather calls to you, feel free to take this engaging activity outside! Kids will search for all the hidden leaves, sort them into parts of speech categories, and then practice creating their own sentences using the words they find. This scavenger hunt is a great activity to play at your next family gathering (or football game viewing). Not only will this activity keep kids busy and happy, but you can rest assured knowing that they’re flexing their grammar muscles, too!
What You Need: Three pieces of fall colored construction paper for sorting parts of speech (or three baskets) Craft leaves, construction paper leaves, or real leaves (check out your local hobby store) Newspaper, dark colored permanent marker (you can also use tape on top of the leaves if you plan to reuse them) Sentence strips, a bucket or basket for collecting leaves and a variety of fall-themed words.
What You Do: 1. Get out the fall colored paper and write one part of speech on the top of each piece. 2. Spread the newspaper on a table or flat surface and put the leaves on top. 3. Write a variety of fall-themed words on each of the leaves, making sure you have a similar amount of adjectives, verbs, and nouns altogether. 4. Hide the leaves all over your house or outside (make sure your child doesn’t peek). 5. Explain to your child that when you say, “On your mark, get set, go,” they need to run around the house (or yard) to find all the hidden leaves. 6. Give your child a bucket for collecting the leaves, and allow your child time to find the leaves, providing support as necessary. 7. Once your child has found all the leaves, explain that now they need to sort the leaves into the correct pile. Review the parts of speech with your child (i.e., an adjective describes something, a noun is a person, place, or thing, and a verb is an action that you can do). 8. Give your child time to sort the leaves into the correct piles. Support them as needed. 9. Review the piles and challenge your child to say complete sentences using an adjective, verb, and noun. Your child can change the tense of the verb to create their sentences (e.g., I run through the gold leaves or I ran through the gold leaves).
Extension Ideas: This engaging fall scavenger hunt activity can be used to reinforce many different math and literacy skills. Basic math operations: Write basic addition, subtraction, multiplication, or division problems on each leaf. Next, have your child sort the leaves into piles based on their operation (e.g., addition and subtraction). Act it out: Continue the fun by having your child act out their parts of speech sentences. For example, your child might pretend like they are running through the gold leaf.