WOO HOO it's FRIDAY!

ok...so that title has a couple meanings...

woo hoo...i got the post done and its still friday!

woo hoo...the kids and i need a break...and its friday!

either way you look at it, its a "woo hoo" kind of day and it was a "woo hoo" kind of week...here's how it went down...

Language Arts
This week was a lot of fun for the kids and me...we finished up our Functional Documents unit by creating our own! I taught the kids how to use Microsoft Publisher this week and then we spent a couple morning time slots in the Lowe Lab creating our recipes, fliers, menus, calendars, etc...your child's document should have come home in his/her folder...and there is one displayed in the classroom, too! It was a great way to once again weave technology into the curriculum and tie together all of the important parts of the indicators in Language Arts.

We also wrote tree poems at the beginning of the week...I'm hoping to publish these poems in a blog entry soon...we did this as part of our Earth Day and Arbor Day celebrations!

AND...we began a short story from the Junior Great Books series yesterday...we did our first reading of The Ugly Duckling by Hans Christian Andersen. Today we completed our second reading as we took directed notes, noting each time an action was taken against the duckling that made him sad or scared or that was mean. This helped us focus our thinking on his suffering and how that shaped him in his life. Next week we will be doing some vocabulary work with this book and all of the work will lead up to our Shared Inquiry Discussion where we take a question and work together to find answers we can support. Its a wonderful series and is written with the intent to help students deepen their comprehension of a classic piece of literature. The kids are doing a marvelous job!

Social Studies
We started a unit entitled "Econ and Me"...say it out loud. :-) They are being exposed to vocabulary such as: economic problems, opportunity cost, goods, services, income, consumption, etc. Through verbal discourse, the students are using the vocabulary to discuss the story Econ is teaching. They really enjoy these videos and cheer when I say we're going to continue with Econ today! We have two more segments for next week and then a terrific project (in class, don't worry!) that we will be completing to use all of the new vocabulary and concepts the kids are learning.

Science
Our anole friends left us...don't worry...they didn't "leave us, leave us", they went back to the science center. But our daphnia...well, they died. And even though the kids no longer have populations living in their classroom, they have a better understanding of food chains and webs, biotic potential (or lack thereof), and all of the other juicy vocabulary and concepts that came with this unit!

Math
DECIMALS...DECIMALS...DECIMALS...need I say more? We have been ordering decimals, decomposing decimals, using relational symbols to compare decimals, and we are in the middle of writing using decimals to describe the pictures the kids drew.

The kids brought a fractions quiz home this week...if your child scored a C or below and you would like your child to have an opportunity to take this quiz again, please sign the quiz and return it. Then work with your child on those particular problems...if they need my help, ask them to talk to me about the specific area they need review. I will give a make up test on Friday of next week for those kids who would like to improve their grade.

Important dates to remember:
Friday, May 7 - Wetlands Celebration (there are TWO documents coming home today about this that you need to see...one asks if you'd like to join us and the other lets you indicate if you'd like your child to stay until 3:30 that day since its an all day affair...so please read carefully and return the appropriate forms.)

Tuesday, May 11 - field trip permission slips went home yesterday...please return these as soon as you can...this field trip is free thanks to the generous grant we receive from the PTA!!