Week of January 23, 2012

This week I will begin my lessons using a Chinese New Year theme since Monday is Chinese New Year. My focus will be on MAIN IDEA and supporting details in the stories we read.
The 5th grade has a list of vocabulary/spelling words to learn this week from Out of the Dust and they are posted on my Spelling City page. Go to www.spellingvocabularycity.com and enter: peele and then gocougars for the password. Each student can memorize each word and how to use it in context using this excellent tool at their fingertips.

For my math students we will focus on word problems for division in fourth grade and in 5th, multiplying and dividing fractions. I can't emphasize enough the need for each student to memorize their multiplication facts.

Please check the NCS website for events going on this week as it is a busy week with homecoming/spirit week, basketball games, and more.

I hope you all have a very productive week!

Mrs. Peele

Happy New Year 2012

Welcome back! We're off to a cold start weather-wise but I know Neuse Charter is going to be hustling from now until the end of school.

January will be a busy month. There will be the 2nd EC Continuous Improvement Plan meeting on Tuesday, January 31st at 4:00. Please mark your calendar if you are on this committee. Thank you. We will discuss improvements we have made so far this year and any suggestions for the second semester. Indicators that have been completed will also be on the agenda and indicators that will be completed the second half of the year will be explained and discussed.

Martin Luther King, Jr. Day is January 16th and it is a school holiday.

For my reading students, I am continuing with the Recipe for Reading program and have ordered more material to use with my students. I will be starting out with short assessments in phonics, fluency, and reading comprehension to keep track of their progress. With the use of our new computers in our classroom, students are able to type sentences and save them to their flash drives. We now have a printer set up in our classroom where students will be able to print out their work.

In math I have discovered a great website call www.mathplayground.com . Please visit this site if you have a chance as it is so organized with the teaching of basic skills and making it fun for our students. I will continue assessing students on their knowledge of multiplication and division facts and having them practice and memorize the facts they still don't know. Also I will be teaching them how to solve word problems.

Have a week of new discoveries!
Nancy Peele

December 5, 2011

Tomorrow night, Tuesday, December 6th, is the Art Show and Christmas Concert at NCS starting at 6:15. We hope you all can come!

My classes have been busy using www.spellingcity.com for spelling and vocabulary practice.
This week the students will focus on the skill of Inference. Students with learning disabilities have difficulty with abstract concepts and with the help of picture clues and demonstrations and sequence, I will teach them the skill of Inferring information from their reading selections.

Math skills are improving with my students and this week we will be applying the skills they are learning in class to word problems that they may encounter on the EOG in the spring. Understanding the vocabulary in the word problem is half the battle. Once they know what is being asked of them they are ready to conquer each problem.

I hope you all have a very good week. Don't forget the Booster Christmas shopping extravaganza coming up!

Mrs. Peele

Happy Thanksgiving!

Monday- November 21st- Neuse Charter's first basketball game of the season!

*5A is having a math test- please study hard!

Students are continually encouraged to use http://www.spellingcity.com/ to study their vocabulary in all subjects including math and science. This is an excellent tool and makes studying fun! Wow!

*Please donate to the library's fund raiser going on now (check Mrs. Souter's Blog)!

Tuesday- November 22nd-

I am continuing to use the " Recipe For Reading" program with some of my students.

This week we will be focusing on syllabication. They have been studying detached syllables and now this week we will begin to put the syllables together to form words with two or more syllables. For reading comprehension we will focus on "the main idea" using short articles that I read aloud and have them choose the correct main idea (from LinguiSystems).

Math vocabulary is so important. Many times, students with learning disabilities, have difficulty connecting from the instructions to solving the problem because of not comprehending the verbage used. For example the term "evaluate" may cause them to not solve a simple problem just because of not understanding what is being asked of them in the directions. Increasing vocabulary is so important in all subjects for all students but with students with learning disabilities it is especially important in order for them to not lose their focus on the problem at hand and move on in their completion of problems.

*On behalf of Mrs. Beaumont and myself, we hope you all have a very Happy Thanksgiving!

Mrs. Peele
peelencs@gmail.com

Tips for a Successful IEP Meeting

Tips for a Successful IEP Meeting

I wanted to share this very helpful article from the National Center for Learning Disabilities' website.
It gives insight into the law, as well as tips for parents and other team members. I hope it is encouraging to all who read it. It was to me.

It is my hope that all IEP team members feel apart of our team at Neuse Charter School. It takes all of us to work together to learn and discover about our students. They are so unique and have so much to teach us.

As we begin the next nine weeks, I will continue to use the "Recipe for Reading" program with my Language Arts student. This program is supported by the Orton Gillingham program. It is an excellent program because it helps students through different methods of learning-visual, auditory, and kinesthetic.
Last week, I had my students perform a listening exercise which I call " Wack-it, Smack-it". As I read a story to my students they were to listen to words ending with "tion" (shun) or "sion"(zhun). If they heard such a word they were to slap the "water"(a blue piece of paper) with a fly swatter. The students that heard the words helped the others who had more difficulty pin-pointing the words by slapping the paper.
Trust me it would get anyone's attention. As we continue to study phonological sounds and their spellings, it is my hope to see our students improve in spelling, reading, and written expression.

Math disabilities can take many forms from what I have observed. One day it seems as if the student understands a concept, and the next day while reviewing the same concept you find a specific area of that concept that is the trouble spot, so to speak. Through continual observation, assessment, and data collection by the teacher and student I hope to see steady improvements with our students.

Feel free to contact me at peelencs@gmail.com
Have a great week!
Mrs. Peele

October 17, 2011 NC State Fair Week

Mr. Peele won 2 blue ribbons at the NC State Fair for his show pigs! Go Pigs! We had a great time. Someone's pig decided to go the wrong way and went under my legs to get wherever he wanted to go! It was fun to see some of Neuse Charter School kids showing animals, as well!

The rest of this month will be an action packed month. Workdays on Friday the 21st and 24th, awards coming up on the 27th and the Booster Bash on the 28th.

The 5th grade has been reading The Secret Garden. It's great to see students so excited about a story. I love the book too! A garden is a wonderful place no matter what is grown there but to have a wall around it and have it be a secret is very special, indeed. Perhaps our students are like plants in a garden that are blossoming each day as they are watered with more and more knowledge and understanding.

A note about schedules- it is a big help to our students to have schedules written down . A suggestion is to have a small card and mark it at the top with the day of the week. A 3x5 card would be excellent. If there is a schedule change for that day, the student can mark it down in homeroom or one of the teachers would be glad to do it for them. They can then check the card throughout the day to see where they are going next. This helps with anxiety about schedules and keeps the students on track. Clear contact paper might be a help to keep it in tact.

Thank you and have an excellent week!

Mrs. Peele

It's NCS Bookfair Week and NC State Fair begins Thursday!

Come to the Fair! The NCS Bookfair and the NC State Fair!!!

Mr. Peele and I will be showing our pigs this Saturday at the Kelly Building at the NC State Fair!

Come and visit us - the shows will be at 8 am, 12:30, and 1:30 pm. Also, this year I have a painting in the art show at the fair .

The fifth grade has been studying weather, as you know. Yesterday some of my students and I found a great song about clouds on www.schooltube.com . It was a great way for them to learn the different types of clouds and remember them, most of all.

I found some beanbags in my closet at the start of school. They are great for so many things.

In Mrs. Vassar's class , I 've been using one as a microphone to pass to each student in my group.Only the student with the microphone gets to talk which cuts down on any interruptions.

In math, the beanbag is a great tool to learn math facts by throwing it back and forth and saying the math facts. In language arts, it is a great sequence tool, phonics tool, as it passes from student to student. I love beanbags.

Have a great week and don't forget to come to the NCS Bookfair and the NC State Fair!

Mrs. Peele