We hope you all stayed warm, dry and safe this weekend. It has been shocking to see how much damage has been caused all around us while Fort Collins remained relatively untouched. Our playground is wet, the grass is soggy, but we are ready to teach and learn here at Rivendell.
This week we begin spelling. Today the kids write their list of words and begin working in the workbook. Each time we do spelling we will be looking at the spelling patterns or rules which should help when studying the words at home. On Friday we will have the spelling test, so the kids have all week to practice the words. Some students like to practice by studying the words and then spelling them orally. Some students like to write down the words multiple times and some like to reinforce their studying by playing spelling games on the computer or ipad. Usually a combination works well. This week we are asking that kids write each word three times on the paper provided.
In math both classes are working hard in purple and peach books. We are finding that some kids are a little “rusty” after the long summer break, so we are doing some review and working our way back to a good pace. In Middle Kids some of the concepts we focus on are math story problems using the correct operation, math vocabulary, making sure our answers make sense, memorization of math facts and looking at math concepts in many different ways. Students who are in the Chameleon math book or above will begin working on memorization of multiplication facts in the next couple of weeks.
Our recitations went very well today. Some of the kids were a little nervous, but everyone stood up front and shared goals. We worked on using a loud, clear voice, standing up straight and making some eye contact with the audience. The audience practiced being polite listeners, asking good questions and adding relevant comments. We will have another recitation in a few weeks.