Maybe a full week ahead!?!?!?!

Do you think it's possible?  I can only hope we are in school for five full days!!

There is so much going on...so here is the latest update for all of you...and I definitely owe you a post of pictures...we'll see if that happens tonight!  I have to share the computer at our house!

SCIENCE FAIR
So...I have set up all of these Science Fair due dates just to help the kids stay on track...tomorrow the data collection/graphs/etc are due...however, if your child hasn't conducted the research yet, then obviously he/she can't bring it in.  That's OK...again, these due dates are for time management so that you are not left doing the entire project the last weekend!  ;-)  I shared some graphing websites with the kids and they are bookmarked on the blog, so feel free to visit them to organize their data.

Our Science Fair is set for Wednesday, March 18th...and that is why the kids' projects are due the Monday before...that way the kids can present their projects to the class prior to being set up in the cafeteria.  Please have your child practice telling us about their project so that they are not reading off their boards.  Any questions...email me or ask your child...we will talk about this in class, too!

BYOD
As you all know by now, this Wednesday I am holding a BYOD meeting in my classroom from 5-5:30 pm.  You are welcome to bring your child and/or their device to the meeting. This is just an information meeting where I will share some of the things we'll be doing with the devices and answer any questions you have.  If you are unable to come, I will send the powerpoint to the entire email list after the meeting.  Feel free to email me with questions.

PARCC
We are starting Day 3 of testing tomorrow.  Please ensure that the next three evenings your kids get an especially good night's sleep and eat a good breakfast each morning.  They did a great job the first two days and I'm very proud of them.  There will not be any homework (other than the Science Fair) this week until testing is over.  They are using their brains at 150% for 75 minutes straight each day and they need to play and rest once they leave here.  A HUGE thank you to Mrs. Petrolle for supplying the kids with yummy snacks each day of testing.  The kids are thoroughly enjoying them!

Silent Auction Basket
Speaking of thanking parents, our other room parent, Mrs. Foster, is organizing our Silent Auction class basket.  The donations are already due, however if you meant to donate and forgot, please send it in soon so that Mrs. Foster can complete the task.  Thank you Mrs. Foster for your hard work!  And thank you to everyone who was able to donate!

LIFE AFTER TESTING....because there IS such a thing!
We will be finishing our novel unit and then move into reading for information/research with a focus on biographies of people who have made an impact on our country.  More to come about this!

In math we will be working with mass, liquid capacity, and volume.  We will do some conceptual work and then move into one of the Mcubed units written especially for gifted kids!

We are finishing all lower case cursive letters and will hightail it into capital letters.  I will slowly ask for some activities to be completed in cursive...

And in writing our focus continues to be opinion writing.  The kids are indentifying a topic they feel strongly about and will work to write an opinion essay using new ideas and strategies they glean from Lucy Calkins mini lessons.

I will begin working on the picture post, however my oldest just told me he has to write a paper, so if I don't get it posted tonight, I will tomorrow.  I hope you enjoyed your four day weekend!  I'm so ready to get back into a routine and STAY THERE!