Data Folder

 I know that most of you are already doing data notebooks. However, I want to suggest that you try keeping a data folder for each student. Each student should have his/her own data folder.  The data folder can be shared during parent-teacher conferences or whenever necessary.  Students can track their progress on a series of “I Can” record forms.  As students acquire new skills, they can track them in their data folder.  Each time a new skill is mastered, a copy of the student’s “I Can” record form should go home as a way to celebrate the child’s accomplishment with parents.

Word of the Day

Is vocabulary a problem for your students? If so, try this simple strategy. Identify five words that would be pertinent to your students and their curriculum. List these five words in the order that you would introduce them over the course of a week. You will teach one word a day over the course of the week. Consider the difficulty of each word, then describe how you would use one of the following activities for teaching each new word. Try to employ a variety of techniques during that time. You may, however, repeat the technique.

• Provide a concrete example of the word.
• Discuss the word: what it sounds like, looks like, and means.
• Give examples and non-examples of the word.
• Read poems, comics and excerpts from books that have interesting usage of the word.
• Read excerpts from the newspaper or other print media that demonstrate the word in the context of current events.
• Have students act out the word.
• Have students create a word page for their person dictionaries, where they write and illustrate the word.

 Try these and other graphic organizers.

To my Readers

Do you know why we celebrate Valentine’s Day? According to one legend, the day of romance we call Valentine’s Day is named for a Christian martyr and dates back to the 5th century, but has origins in the Roman holiday Lupercalia.

Some fun facts about Valentine’s Day:

4 out of 5 people making purchases for Valentine’s Day will buy for someone besides their significant other.
53% of women in America would dump their boyfriend if they did not receive anything for Valentine’s Day.

In 1849 the first mass produced Valentines of embossed paper lace were produced and sold short after 1847 by Esther Howard of Worcester, Massachusetts.
25,000 Valentine postcards were once refused to be delivered by the Chicago post office because they bore unkind messages.

St. Valentine’s Day is meant for people to remember a brave man, a martyr whose name was Valentine.