Classroom Updates: October 4

Wow!!  Where has the time gone?  This phrase, which is so often "overdone" applies to our classroom this year.

I have many classroom updates to share with you:

Vocabulary--Today, students brought home their vocabulary list from our science unit on Energy Transfer.  We've already been working with the words in the classroom, with activities including reading and writing the words, illustrating the words, and studying them in our science journal.  We will continue to work with the words until we take our quiz next Friday (That's October 14).  I have not assigned any homework with the words, I simply wanted to let our parents see the words we are working with in school.

Science--We are beginning a unit on Energy--and will be discussing electricity and magnetism over the next few weeks.  In addition to learning about transfers of energy, we will be learning about energy conservation!  This unit is fun and fascinating!  To learn more at home, try going to the site, www.learningscience.org.  Several interactive lessons are available for the students to try!

Student Council--We elected representatives this week that will represent our class on student council.  Congratulations to 5th grader, Wilson, and 4th grader, Laine K, who will be our class reps.

Writer's Workshop--We are working on writing quality Personal Narratives!  A personal narrative is a story told from or about the writer's life.  These are a wonderful opportunity for us to showcase our writing skills and put to use new writing strategies--including adding exciting leads, learning to add details such as dialogue, bringing forth the internal story, and so much more.  Feel free to look through your son or daughter's writing notebook.  They should be writing more and more, plus trying out strategies learned in class.  Remember this is a notebook, and not a place where corrections are made.  This is the place where we try something new, or work to get down an idea.  Very shortly, we will learn how to take a story or idea out of the notebook, develop and nurture it, write it as a draft, revise, edit, and finally "publish" a finished piece.  Here's just an example of one of our writing lessons:

A special "Thanks!" goes out to Natalie for leading a lesson last week on "Jail Words."  These are words that are terribly overused in writing.  Here's the chart Natalie started and we added to in class:

I have updated my weekly Reader's Workshop blog, be sure to check in every once in a while to check out what we're doing in reading!

Finally...math!  Math is going really well this year.  Students are working on on assignments and lessons that are based on their September placement tests.  At the end of this week all 5th graders will take a quiz on divisibility rules.  4th graders will either be taking a quiz on divisibility rules or place value.  We are also learning about symmetry (4th) and reviewing measuring angles (5th).

MEAP--The MEAP tests will be administered over the next two weeks.  PLEASE MAKE EVERY EFFORT not to remove your child from school during the tests.  The MEAP will be given on the following dates:

• 5th Grade:
• Reading--October 11 and 12
• Math--October 18
• Science--October 19
• 4th Grade
• Reading--October 11 and 12
• Math--October 18
• Writing--October 13 and 19

Please note that I have added an upcoming events tab to the classroom blog.  I am also building a classroom calendar on Google.  It's just not yet finished!  (Too many calendars to keep straight, I think!)

I also have pictures to upload from Spirit Week, but since most were taken with my iPhone, they're not yet uploaded to the blog.  Please be patient, I only have so many hours in the day!  :)

Have a wonderful rest of the week.

Mrs. Perrien