Welcome to my Classroom!

If your child is in my homeroom, Reading or Math group, then you can not only access information on what your child is learning, but also download important handouts and grading rubrics of their current assignments! I try to update this webpage biweekly or as needed when I have given a long-term assignment. Is this your first time here? Read my bio. You can use the links below to navigate this page's content with greater ease. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me at asanterre@kingstonhill.org.

Sections: Current Assignments • Current Schedules and Events • Upcoming Field Trips • Books We Are Reading • What's New in the Homeroom • Wish List

Visit the Picture Galleries to see KHA students in action.

Current Assignments

Homeroom: Has your child handed in their personal experience story ? If not, here is the rubric that I recently sent home to parents in order for your child to be able to self-evaluate their work before submitting it.

Reading group: At the beginning of November, students were assigned to complete a book report that is due in class on December 20, 2006. If you feel that your child will need extra time, then he/she may hand it in to me the Friday before vacation. Also, if your child has misplaced them, here are the handout and rubric given in class.

Math group: My Math students will be having a cumulative test before vacation on all the concepts we have covered in the past four to six weeks. They include: solving equations using distribution, symmetry, classification of angles and triangles, finding the mean, both three dimensional and geometric shapes, finding the area of quadrilaterals and right triangles, adding and subtracting fractions with unlike denominators, exponents and order of operations! Also, as always please continue to quiz your child three times per week on multiplication math facts from the zero through twelve tables. This can be done while you drive together in the car!

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Current Schedules and Events

Please review your Family Flyer for upcoming special school events or speakers.

Students in my homeroom are still working with a music and movement consultant on Fridays from 2-2:30. This is for students who are not participating in the Chance to Dance project.

We have received our portfolios!! They have a home in the classroom and we will be getting them set up for each student in my homeroom the week before vacation. I will be able to put a copy of your child's summary and personal experience story in the writing section.

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Upcoming Field Trips

Homeroom: Miss Donna is helping to schedule a field trip to the RI State House to complement our Social Studies unit on government. We will most likely go during the month of March. Look for further details to come. Also, I will be scheduling a field trip to a local library following mini-lessons in homeroom during the month's of January and February. The lessons will focus on these key questions - What are the resources at my local library? and How do I access them?

Reading group: Bridge to Terabithia the movie is coming out February 2007! Since my reading group has read this book at the beginning of the year, I thought it would be wonderful to take them on a field trip before winter break to see the movie! Look for more details to come.

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Books We Are Reading

My Language Arts group will finish the novel, The Egypt Game by Zilpha Keatley Snyder, before holiday break! We will have a cumulative test on the novel, Thursday, December 21, 2006. This was the second book we read that goes along with our theme of relationships. We are looking at different types of relationships among the characters in our novels, especially friendships. Our guiding principal for study is: relationships affect who we are. We are discovering through character analysis how relationships shape us, whether they shape us in a positive or negative way. Also, what ideas can we take away from this study that will be helpful to us in our own lives as we form connections with those around us.

ATTENTION HOMEROOM PARENTS: Keep those reading logs coming!! Silent reading is alive and going strong in our homeroom at least 20 minutes three times per week! However, I still strongly encourage my students to also keep reading at home as well. Students are encouraged to choose books that are Just Right, and they can leave one in school and one at home if it is more convenient. The more a child reads, the better they are at spelling and writing. See this link for How To Choose a JR Book

Books that we read in homeroom include read alouds that go along with the skill we are trying to bulid in writing. Also, they help us to recognize genre! Some titles include: Brave Irene, Pedro's Journal, Owl Moon and excerpts from, The Great Gilly Hopkins, Beyond the Western Sea, and Kokopelli's Flute.

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What's New in the Homeroom

Thank you to those parents who have sent in index card boxes! Every homeroom student now has an index card box for words that they are learning how to spell as well as identify its part of speech. We will be focusing the next couple of months on building our skills in identifying nouns, both common and proper, verbs, and adjectives. Then, we will color-code them and keep them in our personal word boxes for practice.

Your child was introduced to dialogue journaling as a vehicle for responding in writing to what they are reading independently. I provided them with a rubric and some examples to which they can compare their letters. The procedure is as follows: they write a letter in their literacy log to me once per week and then I respond to their letter by writing back. Many students are doing very well with this and enjoy getting a letter from their teacher. It helps them not only practice letter writing, but it forces them to reflect on the details of the books that they are reading. This goes along with one of the fourth and fifth grade reading standards.

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Wishlist

Mrs. Santerre's Wish List...

- 4 x 6 pastel-colored index cards for color-coding special words. They sell them at Staples in packs of 300.

- Each student needs an empty shoe box for Science. We now have 12!

- Wide ruled lined loose leaf paper.

- 20 tongue depressors for keeping track of where students are in the writing process.

-sheet protectors

THANK YOU!

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