Welcome to the JCA & 5th website where you can find out what's been going on and what is upcoming for us as a class as well as part of the JCA student body.
Classroom News:
General -
The following guidelines established in the mindset of I Corinthians 13 are the JCA & 5th Codes of Conduct. We've discussed what each looks, sounds, even might feel like in a classroom setting. Feel free to ask your student questions about what they've learned and/or taken away from any of those discussions.
- Be Kind
- Show Respect
- Choose Honesty & Integrity
- Obey
Academic:
Math - We spent the first couple of weeks working to assess each student in order to identify how to best address each student's unique needs (fact fluency, number sense, understanding level of the basic math processes, etc) Most recently we have been reviewing place value and general number sense work, along with review and practice of our basic math operations in order to prepare for our upcoming work which will take is into more advanced work with the same operations. (long multiplication, division, etc)
Spelling - Like other areas, the first two weeks were spent assessing and evaluating the basic needs individually as well as collectively. We are now in our second week of "official" lists. We are all working from the same text as well as currently using the same list classwide. I will let you know if that changes as we progress. Right now our focus is word work - each list has had a theme or focus. The first was short vowels, this week's is long a and long e. I am very pleased so far with the curriculum we're using and how each student, regardless of current "natural" ability is being stretched and is growing in skill level while being able to all use the same base words.
L.Arts- Because so many in our class are new to cursive writing, we have been spending a good chunk of our L.Arts block (which covers penmanship, grammar, as well as the conventions of writing, etc) on penmanship basics and intro/review of each letter in the alphabet. It is going very well, and I believe we will all be proficient in both reading and writing cursive this semester and therefore will be able to phase into more inclusive use second semester.
In writing, we will be looking at letter writing, from reason and purpose for writing, to format and structure, as well as implementing our knowledge of basic sentence structure and use of descriptive language in order to enhance our letters making them interesting, informative, and/or persuasive. Keep an eye out for samples of your student's work over the next few weeks.
Reading - Here, too, we spent some time assessing to identify each student's current areas of strengths and weakness in order to best equip them at their individual level. We have spent these first weeks getting exposed and "practiced" with daily and weekly routines that will be staples throughout the year as well as doing basic review work as we explore new texts, etc.
Upcoming Events:
JCA will be guest musicians at Iowa Family Night with the Iowa Wolves at Wells Fargo Arena November 19, 2017. Come join in a night of fellowship and fun!