Week of Oct. 22

                It was great to have so many families participate in last week’s Open House on Monday, Wednesday or Thursday evening.  The students were all so excited about sharing what they have been learning.  They have been working hard and should be proud of their progress during the first quarter.

                November 12^th, the date that the district has set for parent/teacher conferences, is just around the corner.  Please look for a sign-up sheet in this week’s Friday folder.   Traditionally, I have offered times during the designated conference day, as well as one evening. I look forward to talking about your child’s progress during this time.

                We are coming to the end of our unit on personal narratives during writing workshop.  This week, our focus was on self-editing and providing positive feedback to classmates about their narrative pieces.  Next week, we will begin our post assessment narrative pieces.

                The reading block has focused on summaries, theme, and supporting our thinking with evidence from the text.  In fourth and fifth grade, students are expected to identify a theme of a story and support their thinking with several details from the text.  They are also expected to provide a complete summary of the story.   On Wednesday, we read Three Hens and a Peacock by Lester Laminack.  Students were then asked to identify what lesson or “big idea” about life they felt the author was trying to teach us in this book.  We will be sharing our thoughts on Friday in a class discussion.

                On Monday, students heard the story In November by Cynthia Rylant.  This short picture book is filled with descriptive words and figurative language about the month of November.  Students were then asked to create a watercolor about something they like about November.  Some have started writing the next piece of poetry – an acrostic poem.

                Fifth graders have continued their math unit on volume and surface area of a rectangular prism.  Most students have finished building their robots out of cardstock, calculating the volume of each body part and the total volume of their robot.  We have now moved into how we calculate the surface area of a rectangular prism. 

                Students have continued on their autobiography map project.  We should be finishing these by early next week.

                On Friday afternoon, we will be meeting with our kindergarten buddies to complete a special Halloween craft.  Be sure to ask your child about this activity!

                Have a wonderful weekend!