Updates and announcements

Can you believe we only have 2 ½ weeks left before Winter Break? Wow! Our students have grown so much and still have a lot to accomplish before then! If there are any planned absences, please let me know and I will accommodate tests for students to make up before they leave.

With the season of giving upon us, students in the past have enjoyed exchanging Secret Santa gifts. While this is sweet for the students to do, it does cause problems for the functioning of our class. We end up with the presents crowding the backpack area, some hurt feelings when some students are not included, then a whole new round of gift giving to fix the hurt feelings! I kindly ask that if students choose to do a Secret Santa exchange, it takes place outside of school. If students would like to give a present to everyone in the class, they may do so during our party on Wednesday, December 19^th .

Our week in learning

This week, students will learn about the idiom “Out of the frying pan and into the fire”.

Students will recite “The Snowstorm” on 12/5. We extended the due date due to the complexity of the poem and our Thanksgiving break in the middle. PLEASE NOTE: though it is not long, this is a tricky poem to memorize last minute because it does not rhyme. Students should work a little every night to memorize this beautiful poem. Students picked groups in which to recite their poems together.

The roots quiz for last week’s roots will take place on Wednesday. Students will turn in their 2nd Quarter Roots Study Guide on Wednesday, 12/5, and review it in class. The roots test over #26-50 will be on 12/12.

In Literature, we will finish reading “Where the Red Fern Grows”. Students will continue their journal entries. For every chapter, students will write one 5-6 sentence paragraph about a virtue a character showed during that chapter. Notebooks will be collected on Friday, 12/7, so all journal entries should be done by then. Please note, the last two chapters are very sad and we may have some weepy students after school. They grow so attached to the story and the beautiful characters.

In Writing and Grammar, students will take their mid-year grammar test on Tuesday, 12/4. Throughout the week, we will learn about persuasive essays and begin work on the fun essay “Wait, wait, don’t shoot!”. The students will take on the point of view of a turkey around the holidays who is trying to convince the farmer to eat something else for dinner.

We will begin our study of cells this week with a review of the differences between prokaryotes and eukaryotes, with a deeper dive into the characteristics of each. We will also study the layout of plant and animal cells, and learn what each of their organelles does. Students should pay careful attention to their in class notes, as they will be able to use them on their assessment on the 18th.

This week in History, students will learn about feudal Japan by completing a group project. This unit has 5 chapters, and the class will be split up into 5 groups. Each group will be assigned a chapter, and create a presentation to share with the class. Presentations will take place next Monday and Tuesday (December 10th and 11th). All work will be completed in class. Students have also been individually assigned one of the United States, and will create a brochure on said State to present in class. Students will have some research time in class to work on this assignment, including an opportunity to do research on computers. The brochure is due on Thursday, December 13th, and presentations will take place that Thursday and Friday, as well as the following Monday (12/17).

In math, we will continue our unit on Perimeter, Area, and Surface Area. We will look into the area of a rectangle, and explore the reasons behind the equation for the area of a triangle. Please note that we will have frequent quizzes in math. When a “b” quiz comes home for homework, that means there will likely be a quiz the next day. This means there will be frequent, low stakes math quizzes. We will continue our normally scheduled math groups on Wednesday, 8:00-9:15.