Updates and announcements

I hope everyone had a wonderful and restful three day weekend! My weekends are now spent working on classwork for my degree. I am so grateful to have been allowed to overload my coursework this semester so I can submit my certification paperwork in May.

Just a friendly reminder that spelling words should be dictated once to students. Only the missed words need to be rewritten three more times. When students have “all words” for homework, sometimes they get none wrong on the homework assignment, however they miss many words on the test the next day. We are stapling all spelling tests to the previous night’s homework so parents can see how these scores match up.

Athletic Field Day is Friday, February 1st from 8:30-11:00 for K-2 classes and from 12:00-2:30 for grades 3-5! Each year classes are assigned a Greek City State for their team. This year, your child’s team is Corinth, and our team color is red. Your child may wear a plain red shirt (no logos) other than class section or Greek City State and athletic pants or shorts. Students may also wear their school uniform if they wish. There will be no school lunch offered on Athletic Field Day. Please send your child to school with a lunch. We have the coolers, snacks and small water bottles covered, however we do need a few volunteers to follow our class and help out. If you are interested, please email me.

Volunteers for Athletic Field Day

In order to have Athletic Field Day run smoothly, we need your help! Coach Gethings & Coach Warren need volunteers setting up and running the event. Please sign up at

https://www.signupgenius.com/go/508084aacaf28a4fd0-field

to help with the events.

Keep an eye on your email this week. We will be asking for chaperones for our school field trip to the Renaissance Fair on Tuesday, March 5^th. There are a limited number of tickets available, so it will be on a first come, first serve basis. The situation with tickets is a little different this year as all tickets must be purchased by a school before the event for kid’s day. This keeps our kids very safe during this fun event by limiting who can buy tickets.

Our week in learning

This week, students will learn about the idiom “Take the bull by the horns”.

Students will learn about the roots novus, ordo, and saeculum. They will be quizzed on these roots next week. Students should expect a similar quiz every week over the previous week’s roots.

In Literature, we will continue reading “The Secret Garden”. We will continue reading through chapter 9. Students will have a journal entry about every two days. If you have not already done so, please send in a physical copy of “The Secret Garden”.

In Writing and Grammar, students will construct an outline for their essay and begin writing their three paragraphs. Time will be given in class to work, and whatever is not finished will be homework. We will work through one body paragraph at a time. Students will need their research complete by January 22nd, which is when the hard copies of their book and online sources are due. Be on the lookout for an email asking for volunteers the week of 1/28. We will need some parents to help with editing groups.

Students will continue their study of botany this week, diving into the study of plant reproduction. We will start with the life cycles of mosses and ferns, and move into the function and structure of seed plants. Students will also learn about the process of germination and seed dispersal. We will pay careful attention to scientific vocabulary and how to use it in this section.

This week in History, we will come close to finishing our instruction of the unit, “The Age of Exploration”. We will discuss the English, French, and Dutch’s actions during this time period. This will include discussions of further explorers, such as Sir Francis Drake, Jacques Cartier, and Henry Hudson. Students received their study guides for the unit on Friday, January 18^th. The study guides are due on Monday, January 28^th, and the test will be on Wednesday, January 30^th.

In math, we will continue our rather lengthy unit on decimals. Students will change fractions to decimals using long division, and multiply and divide decimals by 10, 100, and 1000 type numbers. ALL workbook homework assignments will be half of every type of problem. There will be math groups this Wednesday, 1/23, 8:00-9:15. Math groups will be sparse this quarter due to AZMerit preparations.