Well...what can I say other than...ahhhhhhhh!! don't get me wrong...I like a snow day just like the rest of them, but this crazy schedule sure does make teaching hard...two days last week, almost a full three days this week....aiyaiyai! It may be a crazy schedule, but we still manage to fit a whole lot in...read on to find out what we've been up to!
LANGUAGE ARTS
We are well underway with our biography unit...and as most of you are aware (I'm still waiting on a few green signed papers)...we are heavy into the researching and drafting part of this project! The kids are taking notes about the important parts of their person's life and especially about their person's invention/innovation. I am continually impressed at the task commitment of your children...each step of the way is modeled and then they just put the "pedal to the medal" and keep going. I have to interject here for a minute...are they driving you crazy pointing out idioms?!?!? I just used one and I'm soooo much more aware of them ever since I taught them to the kids...they tell me new ones every day and point out the ones I use ALL the time! Anyway...I am hoping that all kids have drafts well on their way to being finished by Wednesday of next week...we will peer conference, revise, and then begin publishing. Another storm could really mess with our timeline, so we may need to start thinking warm thoughts! Hopefully, you and your child have begun discussing the outfit and/or artifacts that he/she can use in the wax museum...it is important for your child to represent the innovator through sight and sound...let me know if you need anything to help with this process.
LANGUAGE ARTS
We are well underway with our biography unit...and as most of you are aware (I'm still waiting on a few green signed papers)...we are heavy into the researching and drafting part of this project! The kids are taking notes about the important parts of their person's life and especially about their person's invention/innovation. I am continually impressed at the task commitment of your children...each step of the way is modeled and then they just put the "pedal to the medal" and keep going. I have to interject here for a minute...are they driving you crazy pointing out idioms?!?!? I just used one and I'm soooo much more aware of them ever since I taught them to the kids...they tell me new ones every day and point out the ones I use ALL the time! Anyway...I am hoping that all kids have drafts well on their way to being finished by Wednesday of next week...we will peer conference, revise, and then begin publishing. Another storm could really mess with our timeline, so we may need to start thinking warm thoughts! Hopefully, you and your child have begun discussing the outfit and/or artifacts that he/she can use in the wax museum...it is important for your child to represent the innovator through sight and sound...let me know if you need anything to help with this process.
We have also been writing poetry over the past two weeks...each student has written a "color poem", a diamante, and a haiku. The color poems were published today and they are PHENOMENAL...they will come home, but will also hang in the classroom...and I'm sure many of them will be entered into the Quill...our school literary publication.
MATH
We took the Quarter 2 post test this past week and we also took the Quarter 3 pretest. They are very time consuming, but so helpful in the planning of instruction and the assessing of information taught. These tests do not affect your child's math grade, but all data is kept in a file on the school database. If you are ever curious about your child's pre and post test in a quarter, you are welcome to shoot me an email and I can share them with you or set up a conference to discuss the scores. The goal for all kids is to score an 80% or higher on the post test...all kids made huge leaps in the second quarter, and many had far to leap!!
We are headed into division and spent some time this week estimating...we talked about "compatible" numbers when estimating with division. If you have to divide 35 by 4, instead of rounding up to 40, a more accurate estimate is using 32 because it is "compatible" with 4 and is closer to 35 than 40. This is a whole new way of thinking and takes a while to get used to.
I cannot stress enough how important it is for your child to have mastery of their multiplication facts. Division is so much easier when you have quick recall of your facts. Again, these facts can be practiced aloud in the car on a short drive, on the computer through games, through flash cards, or through skip counting...whatever way works best for you and your child, please help him/her with the multiplication facts!!
SOCIAL STUDIES
We have been reading and discussing global trade the past couple days...discussing how higher costs affect the number of products made, and how lower costs affect the profit, etc. This coming week (barring any other snow storms) we will begin our Entrepreneurs unit. However...we will also be starting our nexty SCIENCE unit.
SCIENCE
We will begin our Rocks, Soil and Fossils unit with worms and composting! Speaking of composting...please send in food scraps (fruit peels, vegetable peels, etc)...for our compost piles...I have the worms, soil, and scrap paper...ALSO...if any parent has time on Monday morning...say, for an hour during our 9:00 -10:30 block or the 11:15-12:00 block, I could use a volunteer to help create our compost piles...(IMPORTANT NOTE: if you mind getting messy or handling worms, this is NOT the job for you!!)...send me an email if you are interested/able...thanks!
I hope you stay warm, and don't let your kids do a snow dance...I don't think I can handle anymore loss of instructional time!! (did I just type that out loud!??!) ;-) Have a good weekend!
