The Week of January 4th, 2010

Dear Parents and Students:
~Happy New Year!!!
.
~IOWA testing begins the week of January 11th.
.

HERE'S WHAT'S HAPPENING IN THE CLASSROOM:

.

SPELLING: Lesson 15 and word of the week

.

ENGLISH: Verbs - Unit 3 Lessons 7 - 10

We will be learning future tense verbs, subject/verb agreement and reviewing contractions.

.

READING:

Monday - Running Out of Time - last book club meeting and discussion sheets are due.

The rest of the week we will be practing different reading skills from our ISAT practice books.

"Using prior knowledge and setting a purpose for reading" and "Author's Purpose".

.

SCOOPer Reading = Remember this is a self paced independent reading program and your child has set a goal to reach by the end of the trimester. Book activities can only be turned in one at a time. I have a feeling that I will be getting a lot of book activities this week after our winter break.

.

SOCIAL STUDIES = Chapter 7 "Fight for a Continent"

We will be learning about the French and Spanish trying to claim more land.

.

SCIENCE = Chapter 6 test = Weds. It will be an open note (not book) test.

The students can use all the note sheets and quizzes from Chapter 6.

OWL PELLETS.....We will be doing a hands-on activity and dissecting the pellets at the end of the week! The students will be sorting, classifying, and identifying what they discover in the pellet.

.

MATH = Chapter 6 test = Weds.

We will be doing review activities in class prior to the test,

Extended Response math questions, which are on the ISAT test, is what we will be working on the rest of the week.

.

The Week of December 14, 2009

Dear Parents and Students:
Thanks to all of you who were able to contribute to our Holiday Service Project. Our class came through in making a less fortunate family's holiday a lot merrier!
.

Some Reminders.....

*Monday, 12/14 = Holiday Concert - 7:00 @ Lakeview

*Thursday, 12/17 = Bowling field trip - students may bring $ for snacks.

Ms. Stainman has asked them not to bring more than $10.oo.

*Friday, 12/18 = Movie at Tivoli

Hot lunch will be available!

.

HERE'S WHAT'S HAPPENING IN OUR CLASSROOM:

.

SPELLING - None this week!

.

ENGLISH - Linking Verb project due on Monday.

We will be continuing Chapter 5 verbs and going over present and past tense of verbs this week.

This chapter will continue after our winter break.

.

READING - Running Out of Time

Monday = Book club discussion for chapters 10-14 and book club discussion sheet due.

Wednesday = Book club discussion for chapters 15 -19 and book club discussion sheet due.

Monday, January 4th = Book club discussion for chapters 20 to end of book and book club sheet.

*The book club discussion sheet requires the students to use the reading strategies we have been working on: summarizing, questioning, connecting, and predicting.

.

SCOOPer Reading - Your child should have a chance to get some reading and an activity done during break. I have gone over with each student their goal and what they have accomplished so far.

.

SOCIAL STUDIES - Chapter 6 Test = Tuesday. The students were told about this test over a week ahead of time because of it being the day after the concert.

We will be doing a class review game on Monday.

.

SCIENCE - Lesson 3 "How Do People Affect Ecosystems"

Wednesday = Quick Study/Quiz

.

MATH - Chapter 6 Lessons 1-3

.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

The Week of December 7, 2009

Dear Parents and Students:
.
Some Reminders: Holiday Service Project - due date for donations is Tuesday, Dec. 8th.
Thanks so much to all of you who have already so generously donated gifts
and gift cards to make this less fortunate family have a wonderful holiday!
.
Bowling Permission Slips - due before or on Thursday, Dec. 10th
Bowling Field Trip = Thurs. 12/17
.
Project Challenge - meets Tues. Dec. 8th afterschool
.
.
THIS WEEK IN OUR CLASSROOM:
.
Spelling = Lesson 14 and word of the week
.
English = Unit 3 Verbs....Lesson 4 "Linking Verbs"
We will be doing a project with linking verbs. The students will begin with a rough draft that will be due Tuesday. Then, we will go over our rough drafts and begin our creative islands with linking verb sentences to describe the island. They will have class time on Tues. and Weds. to work on this. The project can go home on Weds. to be completed by its due date Friday, December 11th.
We will also be doing a review lesson on present tense forms of verbs.
.
Reading = We are reading the novel, Running Out of Time. We have gone over the questioning strategy and the students are now independently writing their own Right There, Think & Search, and On Your Own questions. We have had some interesting class discussions from the questions they wrote.
We are also practicing summarizing and with this novel writing a cummulative summary.
This week we will be incorporating connecting skills and predicting skills........
The students will begin "Book Club Discussion sheets", which will use all the above mentioned skills, by the end of the week.
.
SCOOPer Reading = Each student should have one book read and activity completed prior to our holiday break. The goal is for the trimester but you don't want to fall behind!
.
Social Studies = Chapter 6 continued..... I encouraged each child to bring home their social studies book and review lessons 1,2, and 3. This will make studying a bit easier as we do our last
lesson, lesson 4 "Slavery in the Colonies" this week.
We will go over what to study at the end of the week.
Chapter 6 Test is Tuesday, December 15th
**I am giving this advance notice because I know many students are in the concert on Monday night prior to the test!
.
Science = continuing Chapter 6 - Lesson 2 "How Do Ecosystems Change Over Time?"
.
Math = Chapter 5, Lessons 1 & 2 "homework sheet" = Monday.
It will have 5 problems from both wb5.1 & wb 5.2.
Chapter 5 Review is Wednesday.
Chapter 5 Test is Thursday.