Teacher's note January 16, 2012

I hope you had a very enjoyable Martin Luther King Day and the students have a better understanding of the reason for this holiday.

Two very important packets of information will go be sent home on Tuesday.  The first is the Spell-a-thon packet  giving directions and dates for this year.  As you probably know, this is Soleng Tom's big fund raiser event of the year featuring great incentives.  I will be encouraging every student to participate.  It is absolutely amazing how much money can be earned with everyone working together.   The students can begin gathering sponsors.  The second packet of information is about our track team.  Only the students interested in trying out for track will receive that packet.  4th and 5th graders are invited to try out for the team with practices starting on February 2nd.  I am one of the track coaches.  Please take the time to read the spell-a-thon and possibly track information. 

We've completed the book Chocolate Fever and now we are ready to write our own story about too much of a good thing.  Tuesday the students will complete the prewriting web to organize their ideas and then start on the rough draft.  Our goals are to understand how to use quotation marks correctly and when to start a  new paragraph in a story.  Thursday evening I will ask for your assistance in editing the rough draft.

We're moving on to 10,000 in our math unit!   So far our numbers have been less than one thousand.  The students will work together to build a 10,000 chart to hang on our wall.  Each student should be comfortable using the standard algorithm for addition.   Now I will require the students to use two different methods to add and one of them has to be the algorithm.  The only exception will be determining elapsed time - because of only 60 minutes in an hour.  We have be using the open numberline to determine elapsed time and I must say I am pleased with the kids ability to solve elapsed time. 

Perhaps the most exciting investigation in this science unit will take place Tuesday afternoon.  The kids will conduct a series of investigations called Stream Studies.  The final event will be a model of a flood.  You may want to ask your son or daughter if their house or hospital got washed away with the flood. 

May we all have pleasant learning experiences this week.

Take care,
Mrs. Figueroa