Dear Parents,

Welcome back to Spring 2018! I hope everyone has had a restful and fun-filled holiday.

Please take note of the following excerpt from this semester's communication book; on a weekly basis the class will be assigned item number 4 under the heading "Daily Verbs".

Beyond the focus vocabulary for each unit, I feel that due to lack of practice and contact in English on a daily basis, we will add an additional focus on verbs used in each unit. Our kids will be assigned to write sentences using the three verbs each time for about three times a week.


Thanks for your attention, and study well.

Monday 星期一	□1. Review Reading Street Story: _______________ □2. Week ____ New Vocabulary 1 – 10 (x3/x2/x1) □3. Read Ten Important Sentences p. ______ ✅4. Daily Verb □5. □6.	家長簽名：
		Teacher’s  Signature：

Fry's 100 Sight Words

Dear Parents,

         As this semester draws to a close, I'd like to take this opportunity to sum up our accomplishments, challenges, and suggest some to-dos over the short winter break to give the kids a head start on the Spring semester. In twenty weeks this year, we have furthered our use of pronouns, subject-verb agreement in the present, past, progressive, and future tenses for the first time. We have continued with our phonics and decoding skills to include digraphs and diphthongs and are beginning to decode multiple syllable words. While the majority of our kids don't have a problem absorbing the skills being imparted, focus and retention remain a challenge for a large group scoring low 70s and below.
          On the whole, focus, retention and speaking fluency are the biggest challenges our kids will have to overcome in order to really master the skills they have learned. It is obvious from their test scores that more than a few students are performing barely at or below grade level for reasons mentioned above.  Hereinafter are some areas our kids of all levels can work on during the winter break and  on to the spring semester; as I have mentioned since the first grade for the kids that started in class 103 with Teacher Ivy and me, Fry's 1000 Sight Words List http://www.k12reader.com/Fry-Words/fry_complete_1000.pdf for learners of English is a list of words that our kids must know and use proficiently. They will acquire 100 words per grade starting with the first 100.  They must be able to say the words, recognize them, give their easy definition and use them in a sentence of their own. Depending on which 100 words your child is having trouble with, you can then judge whether they are on, at or above level. The aforementioned link includes all 1000 words.
         In the areas of speaking fluency and focus, all our students will improve from reading books of their own interest, watching movies and shows with the English subtitles on, and playing various games that will help improve their concentration. I know a few kids in our class that can really benefit from the tips found on this site; https://flintobox.com/blog/child-development/13-tips-increase-concentration-kids. Have a great winter vacation and I'll continue to post relevant pointers, book and site referrals.

Final Exam

Dear Parents, The Final Monthly Exams are upon us once again, hereafter is the exam schedule and test scope. Please remind our kids to go over vocabulary and reading stories listed in the test scope. 1/03 Wednesday- Vocabulary Review Test 1/05 Friday- Listening and Reading Test 1/02 Tuesday- Written Test Test Scope: Vocabulary Focus: Week 13 ~ Week 20 (Communication Book, the typo and misprint puts week2 of Scarcity at week 20 page 41) Reading Street Stories Tara and Tiree, Fearless Friends Abraham Lincoln Scarcity Grammar Focus: Common Nouns, Proper Nouns, Singular and Plural Nouns, Contractions Phonics Focus: R controlled Vowels; er, ir, ur, ar, or, ore and oar Study well

Dear Parents,

It has come to my attention that certain behavioral issues are affecting our class as a whole. Although I am generally lenient, willing to listen and try to be patient with our students, I would draw the line when misbehavior poses a potential danger to others. I was informed that misbehavior in art class yesterday caused a pair of scissors to miraculously fly out of the window. I do not know the hows and whys of this incident but I believe we should make a point to our kids that they should also draw their line at dangerous behavior and tell an adult about it when they see such behavior.

Our class dynamic makes this group rambunctious, playful but at times too talkative for their own good. It's is a fine balance between being dry and boring to loud and out of control. As we continue with practice in listening and self-control we shall continue to keep safety as the utmost priority.

Please have a short talk with our kids at your convenience about matters of behavior as it pertains to the safety of self and others around us

Sincerely,

Arthur Tsay

Dear Parents,

We have concluded our Second Monthly Exam and you'll be receiving the hard copies for you to sign tonight. Please have the students bring them back to file away in their learning portfolios.

I want to take this opportunity to congratulate the following students for achieving the top five Test score averages of our class; Yvonne Lin, Nini Lu, Tiger Yu, Wendy Lo and Nicholas Chen, keep up the great work, you are being great examples for the rest of your classmates.

Additionally, I would also like to congratulate and encourage our most improved students of the month; Jimmy Lee, and Teresa Chen, keep up your diligent effort and in time you'll be top of the heap.

I would also like to remind the rest of the class that our online component assignments need to be completed and encourage them to put their focus on the tasks at hand each day, each class if they want to see real improvements in their learning progress.

Dear Parents, The Second Monthly Exams are upon us once again, hereafter is the exam schedule and test scope. Please remind our kids to go over vocabulary and reading stories listed in the test scope. 11/14 Tuesday- Vocabulary Review Test 11/17 Friday- Listening & Reading Test 11/22 Wednesday- Written Test Test Scope: Vocabulary Focus  Week 6 ~ Week 11 (Communication Book) Reading Street Stories Henry and Mudge, A Walk in the Desert, The Strongest One. Grammar Focus Subjects, Verbs, Objects, and Time Subject/Verb Agreement (I go vs he goes) Phonics Focus Consonant Blends (pg 29, 34) Consonant Diagraphs (pg 53, 58) Declarative, Interrogative (pg 43) Inflected Endings (41, 46) Imperative, Exclamatory (pg 55, 60) Study well

Mexican Halloween- Dia de Los Muertos (Day of the Dead)

 Dear Parents,

In celebration of Halloween and in conjunction with our Global Education theme for experience class this year we are hosting two events next Tuesday and Wednesday. On Tuesday, we will be hosting a costume party in class, our kids are welcomed to come to school in their costumes to join in the fun. On Wednesday, we will introduce the Day of the Dead, All Saints' Day, and All Soul's Day festivities to our kids. We'll also host a burrito tasting to introduce Mexican cuisine to the class.

Hereinafter is a brief cookware and utensil list we'll need the students to supply; 

Burrito Feast

List of materials:

Cookware and Utensils-

·       3 hot plates

·       2 frying pans, 1 saucepan

·       Knives, and cutting board

·       Sanitary gloves

·       Paper plates

The Food list will be supplied by the school

  

Food Ingredients-
butter

·       12 flour tortillas 

·       Cooked rice (enough for 12 bowls)

·       2 cans of cooked black or pinto beans 

·       1 head of lettuce 

·       2 jars of ready-made salsa (mild and spicy)

·       Assorted vegetable for sautéing (mushrooms, onions, and peppers)

·       Cilantro (1 bunch) 

·       Hard tofu (for pan frying) 

·       4 pieces 200g. chicken breasts 

·       1 container of Sour cream (if possible)

Looking forward to next week, happy Halloween!!