What a great end of the year celebration!  After completing all three boxes of the Fountas and Pinnell Leveled Literacy Intervention readers and moving into the Usborne readers, the Third and Fourth graders who attend the Literacy Lab were treated to a Dairy Queen lunch.  We were even lucky enough to have Mr. Peterson join us.  We all walked up to the Dairy Queen, were treated to a Kid's Meal and a dessert, and walked back in time for our next classes after recess.  What a great way to end the year, celebrate our hard work, and set reading goals for the summer.  Way to go Third and Fourth graders!  Keep up the great work.

This month in the Literacy Lab, we are working on many new phonics skills.  The younger grades are working on their long vowel sounds and word families.  The older grades have been creating words with vowel teams, blends, and digraphs.  We have had some fun word building and spelling contests, and many vocabulary building activities centered around these concepts.  Plenty of learning going on up here.

I'm thrilled to announce that we have a new member to our volunteer team!  Highland Catholic is happy to welcome Sr. Kathy Ryan.  Sr. Kathy is an aunt to three of our students, and is kind enough to come to our school two days a week in the morning to work with Literacy Lab students on phonics skills. This month the younger students have been learning and reviewing their letters and  letter sounds using a fun animal story that is easy for the children to remember.  They have all been thoroughly captivated and couldn't wait until we got to the final letter. What an interesting, exciting, new way to learn and review our letter sounds.  Thank you Sr. Kathy.  We can't wait to see what's next!

Homework Help: Fun games we can all play at home!

Math Games Using Dice and Playing Cards

I have created a fun booklet of math games you can play with your child to increase their math skills.   Many of these involve dice and cards, so definitely items you already have at home.  I also have quick games that can be played to learn math facts instead of using routine flash cards.  If you would like a copy of this booklet please let me know via an email at l.mischke@highlandcatholic.org.

Heading into December

We have been busy up in the Literacy Lab working on many new reading skills.  The Kindergarteners are busy learning their letter sounds while playing fun reading games, the First graders are working on reading several books at their level and writing sentences about them.  The Second graders are reading about dinosaurs, the Third graders just finished the play The City Mouse and the Country Mouse and enjoyed acting it out, and the Fourth graders finished The Littles, and are working on the play we wrote based on the book.  We are hoping to perform it for their classmates before Christmas.
As always, plenty of fun and learning going on in the Literacy Lab.  Feel free to come up and check us out.  We are open Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays all day!

Literacy Lab

We have been busy up in the LIteracy Lab with group plays. So far the students have done "Jacqueline and the Beanstalk", "Chicken Little", and "The Great Big Enormous Turnip". The children throughly enjoyed making props for the plays and coming up with costumes. Reader's Theater is a great way for students to work on reading skills while exercising their innate creative talents at the same time. What a way for them to SHINE! We had a blast performing for their class or the Kindergarteners.

What a fabulous response!!!!!

This summer I sent home workbooks with a number of my students. I could not believe how many worked so hard on their books. I received more completed books than I ever have in all my years of teaching. I am so proud of all of you! Those that finished their whole books will be dining with Mrs. Schmidt and me at the local Dairy Queen!!!! Many others picked up prizes based on the number of pages they completed. These prizes ranged from blow pops to jean day passes. Congrats to all.
Mrs. Mischke

Summer school offerings

I recently wrote about the wonderful Orton Gillingham program that Visitation offers this summer at a discount for our families. I would like to mention in this blog, all the wonderful opportunities that are available right here at our school as well. We have a wide gamut of offerings from creativity and wizardry, to science, art, math and even some creative writing. We really have something for everyone. Many of us are also available for individual tutoring throughout the summer. There is something for every age group, and all are welcome. Hope to see you there. If you did not receive our summer camps catalog, please stop by the office for another copy. Hopefully your child brought one home in their Thursday folders. Happy Spring!!!!