Happy New Year. Welcome to the second half of the school year. I have really missed your children the last two weeks and I can’t wait for school to reopen. I bet the kids don’t share my enthusiasm. Here is an over view of the month.

Math – We are really going to stress those multiplication tables. You can’t really be successful in math unless you know those by heart. So we are going to work on them every day. There will be homework until they know them. Otherwise, we are beginning long division this month.

Science- We are beginning a unit on the human body. We will especially work on the digestive system, the circulatory system, the bones and muscles and the respiratory system.

Reading – We need to become more fluent readers. The only way to do that is to practice. So every day there will be some reading to do at home. Please encourage them to pick up a book for at least 15 minutes.

Social Studies – We are moving to the Mid West. This is the month for Kansas Day so it seems appropriate.

Writing – We have reviewed all cursive lower case letters, so we are ready to begin writing our assignments in cursive and ink. The children will do math in pencil. They may take tests in manuscript and do workbook pages in manuscript but the rest will be done in cursive. Please make sure that they have ink pens. The erasable kind are the best for them.

Language – We are working on pronouns and we will be doing a great deal of writing this semester.

Spelling – We will be adding words that we miss on our daily assignments to our personal spelling lists.

Religion – Lent comes early this year, so we will be preparing for that. We will also be studying the sacraments.

Report cards come out later this week, but if you can’t wait, the grades are published.