To families of English language arts students in grades 4, 5, 6
It's been an exciting, positive school year. We enjoy exploring language in more detail. What makes a sentence? How should we best build a paragraph, an essay? How do you use nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs correctly? Can you use mechanics accurately? Are you able to edit for meaning and clarity? How do you best formulate your ideas so that others understand and enjoy reading and listening to your words? Communication is key!
Our reading curriculum has interesting selections that lend themselves to in-depth discussions. Flowers for Algernon is a powerful story. Wow! Holes is also a favorite of ours. Book reports are in full swing, and we can't wait to share our projects with the public. Stop and see our book reports on display.
Many students submit work for publication to local outlets. Essay contests with the local Veterans' group as well as the local newspaper are just examples of opportunities available here! Many students also design successful business advertisements for a contest sponsored by The Globe. Two students entered a poetry contest. Please encourage these young authors and publicists to keep creating. We are very proud of their efforts and talents that apply to real life. How rewarding!
Where would we be without our donors? Our local students are lucky to have a supportive community. We were able to afford the necessary materials to ensure a successful year. We would like to thank the generous people who donated The New York Times newspapers for kids as well as subscriptions to Scholastic News, Scope, and Storyworks magazines. What wonderful sources! Awesome news! Thank you for considering Mercer students. Thank you. Thank you.
We are also grateful for the opportunity to participate in the Iron County speaking contest, focusing on environmental and conservation issues pertaining to our local area. Students do a phenomenal job with research and preparation. You would be proud of their public speaking performances! It is a valuable experience for all. Thanks to the judges and families who support students in this process. Congratulations to past winners, who went on to a regional competition to deliver their talks on Climate Change and Nature Deficit Disorder - great job!
Thanks also to our local VFW organization for sponsoring the speaking and essay contests. It sparked students' conversations, and the generosity of the VFW is immensely appreciated - year-round. Thank you for your continued service to our country and the youth of our community.
It's been great to go over reading strategies. We'll be talking about them for years to come. Practice these as you read! Use phonics/decoding skills. Predict before you read and as you read. Infer if necessary. Monitor your understanding in order to clarify any questions you might have. It's fun to evaluate the author and be able to summarize what you've read. Students are working on book reports. Even several adventurous 4th graders have participated, reading and summarizing and designing projects such as game boards - way to go!
Here is a BIG thank-you to those who donated for the Donor's Choose project. We will definitely benefit from the magazine subscriptions you provided. Scope and Storyworks are great periodicals, and we genuinely enjoy the articles and plays. The students and I appreciate your generosity very much!
Some students participate in multiple after-school events. These scholars had to be sure to finish work IN class and use time wisely. As always, I'm here to help and will definitely do my best to make things stress-free. I will make time for you. Just ask!
Please also visit the public library and find some great books to read. The librarians are eager to help you, and we encourage you to read anything that appeals to you. Hopefully you have read the free book donated in May of 2022. We're very grateful to have community members who want to share books. There are also books in my room and our own school library, so you can likely find something you will enjoy reading.
Finally, we are enjoying online programs such as noredink. You could also explore things like pronoun jeopardy (they also have other parts of speech), funenglishgames, pbskids.org, newsela, brainpop, google docs, kids.nationalgeographic, google maps (love it), or windy.com.
Thanks for reading. Remember to get outdoors and enjoy the great Northwoods!
Sincerely yours,
Mrs. Benzel
English Language Arts Grades 5, 6, 7, 8