Happy "Strawberry Festival" Friday!

What a fun afternoon/evening! First and foremost...thank you SO much to Mrs. Gallo who organized the game and organized all of the volunteers...I so appreciate her hard work for our class!! Thank you also to the parents that were able to volunteer their time tonight...what a great time all the UES students had!

We had a great week...we are very busy working cooperatively...I was sitting back watching the kids the other day thinking about how much they've grown up in one year. They are such a great group and I get a little teary thinking about the fact that the year is starting to wind down...but enough about that...onto the important stuff!

Language Arts
Your children are heavy into the theater right now. They have picked scripts, chosen parts, designed scenery, and they are in the midst of rehearsals. They are projecting their voices and using great stage presence in their parts. I am extremely proud of them. I am hoping to have their plays ready to be viewed by YOU, the parents, the first full week of June. UNFORTUNATELY I left my planbook at school, so I cannot give you a date until Monday...but I promise to set the date so you can make plans to see the play. It will be in the morning...probably 9-10:15 or so...but again, can't give you the exact date without my planbook in hand!

This coming week will be the last week of Word Study. I know you all love for the homework to stay strong right up until the very end...but I gotta tell you...if they're half as tired of Word Study packets as I am of grading them...we need to quit after next week!! :-) I will continue to send Math or something to do with Social Studies, but June and Word Study are not friends. :-)

Social Studies/Math
Ladies and Gentlemen..."ENTREPRENEURS in the house!!" We have four different companies being run in our classroom right now. These companies have been given a loan and have designed a product they believe their classmates (the consumers) will want to buy. They have had to work within their budget while deciding what resources they will use, what type of advertising they're going to do, and what kind of profit they should shoot for when deciding on a price for the product. These groups are working very well together...even with a few economic problems along the way...and that is a feat in itself! Today we began to build the prototype and we will continue this venture next week.

We had an excellent lesson from Mrs. Cicerone in the computer lab on Tuesday! She showed the kids how to use Excel when organizing and recording data. THEN she showed them how to use the "chart" tool to graph their data...can you scream, "EXCITING!!" You could have heard a pin drop as these kids took her info and explored in Excel making all sorts of charts and graphs. THANK YOU, Mrs. Cicerone!! The next day we went back into the lab and using data we had collected that very morning, the kids chose which set of data to record in their own spreadsheet and they created graphs to depict their data...how is it they are only 8? 9? I was way impressed!!

I hope you have a great weekend...I'll try to take some pictures next week while the kids are working in their play groups or their Entrepreneur groups...'til then...