The beginning of a new school year is an exciting time for students. It's a time of exploration, and that is the first theme in our Reading series - Exploration. The five selections of the theme will help children answer the big question "What can we learn from exploring new places and things?"

Our first story of the year is a realistic fiction selection called Iris and Walter, written by Elissa Haden Guest. Iris is lonely in her new home in the country until she discovers a treehouse - and in it she finds a new friend named Walter. Students will read about Iris's transition from life in the city to rural life and about making new friends in a new neighborhood.

This week's paired selections are two poems, Morning Song and My Travel Tree, both by Bobbi Katz.

Your child can practice this week's vocabulary list words by playing the series of Java Games linked below in the Quia Activities section. There are four games ranging in difficulty, beginning with Flashcards, then Match Game, Concentration, and finally Word Search. The words and definitions are available online by clicking the List of Terms button found above any of the Java Games pages. Once your child has mastered matching the list words and definitions, he should click the link for the Cloze Activity which tests list vocabulary in sentence context.

The Useful Links section contains enrichment activities and information that correlate to the stories and skills for the week. These links are for your use at home. Our spelling list words contain short vowel sounds, so you'll find practice links for that skill. This week's grammar skill is making sentences, so I've included links to sentence games near the bottom of the list.