Updates and Announcements

We are gearing up for another week of school. It is hard to believe that this is our 14^th week of the school year!

PICTURE RETAKES are tomorrow, Tuesday, November 8th.

We will not have school this Friday in observance of Veteran’s Day.

Our in-class Spelling Bee is coming up! Our written bee will be this week on Wednesday, November 9^th and the scholars who passed will proceed on to our oral bee the following Wednesday, November 16^th.

Our week in learning

Our class did a wonderful job on their personal narratives, learning to move through the writing process and take a paper to publication.  This week we will take a break from writing to focus on Grammar.  Our focus will be identifying, labeling, and diagramming complex sentences.

We are delving deeper into Where the Red Fern Grows. This week we will focus on comparing and contrasting characters, specifically looking at Old Dan and Little Anne from our story.  By Monday, November 7th students should choose their projects for the 100 Point Project and have a parent sign off on this.  This project has a TENTATIVE due date of December 10th.

Students will recite, “Casey at the Bat” last week on Wednesday, November 9th, so please be sure your students are preparing for that.  We will also be having our next roots quiz on Wednesday!

Also, we have noticed that many students are turning their Spalding homework in without checking for mistakes, and writing missed words three times.  As a reminder, students should have words dictated to them, correct them, and write each missed word three times. Please encourage your students to follow this process so that they get the best benefit from their homework!

This week we will be testing on Classification. The students have had the study guide for two weeks prior to the test and should have been studying a little bit every night. The test is on Monday, the 7th.

Then, we will move into the wonderful microscopic world of cells. That unit will continue for the duration of quarter 2.

This week, students will continue their study of Venice during the Renaissance. We will also delve into the works of Leonardo da Vinci, studying his inventions, artwork, and many skills that made him the perfect example of a Renaissance Man.

On Wednesday, students will learn about the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States in their homeroom classes.

Our next focus in math is using our knowledge of fractions to convert measurements from both large to small, and small to large. Please note for the next two weeks our math group times have changed, due to music rehearsals.  We will be having math groups from 8:45-9:45. Please let us know if you are able to help. We so appreciate you!

 Study skill of the week

Our upcoming Science test has lots of information on it, one way to help students understand abstract concepts is to create a concept map.  Have your student take a piece of paper and write each of the major kingdoms on it, and then add detail about that kingdom around the word.  For a more detailed description, as well as other great study ideas, see this website: http://teachmama.com/show-your-kids-how-to-study-5-easy-ways/