September 20, 2015

Dates to Remember:

Fri.,  Sept. 25^th  EMES School Hike (Rain Date Oct. 2^nd)

Fri., Sept. 25^th  Solmate Sock orders due

Tues., Oct. 6^th  Picture Retake Day

Mon., Oct. 12^th Columbus Day (no school)

Tues., Oct. 13^th Teacher in-service (no school for students)

Wed., Oct. 14^th Oct. Nature journaling with Karen Liebermann

Class Photos

Several students have asked why the class photos were not in their packets.  They are currently being reprinted and will be sent home soon.

Open House

It was great to see so many at our Open House this past week.  The children were excited to share our classroom with you.  If you were not able to attend Open House on Wednesday and would like to schedule a time to visit our classroom with your child, please let me know.

Monarch Update

Our monarch larvae are growing nicely.  On Friday, we put them in a tank for their next phase of life – the chrysalis.  This past week we were able to look closely at the cuticle (their tough, waterproof skins) after one had molted on Tuesday.  Through our read aloud, An Extraordinary Life:  The Story of a Monarch Butterfly, we learned that the larva eats the cast-off old skin, which is full of proteins needed for them to grow.  We also learned that in just two weeks, these amazing caterpillars multiply their weight more than twenty-five hundred times!

A larva with its cast-off skin!

In Technology class the students have started learning about Google slide presentations.  During Technology class the students have been creating a “passion” project.  These slide presentations are about something the child is passionate about.  We will begin practicing our new skills on individual monarch slide presentations next Monday.

Math

In Math class we have continued our review of place value, first focusing on whole numbers through the trillions.  The favorite activity was “Building Numbers with M & M’s.”  I assigned a value for each color of these yummy candies (i.e. red = thousands).  Students were given M and M’s and asked to find the value of their candies.  They then practiced writing the number in standard form as well as expanded form.  Next, we reviewed >, <, and =.  This past week we began to explore decimals through thousandths.  On Thursday, we completed the Easy CBM math assessment.