Weekly Reminders 9/14/09

Dear Room 20 & 21 parents and students,
Here it is, already Monday again! We hope you had the opportunity to come to Family Fun Night this weekend! There was a large turnout of people, great food, and lots of fun games and prizes. Many of our students also donated canned goods to help out needy families as part of our Project Cornerstone community outreach program - well done! This week,our parent/student teacher conferences continue! Thank you to all of the parents who have shown up so promptly and taken time out of their busy days to meet and discuss your child's upcoming goals for the trimester. We're looking forward to meeting with the rest of our students and parents this week.

Just a quick reminder that our blogsite addresses are:

Room 20 (Scourkes) http://rockhopperroom20.blogspot.com
Room 21 (Roels) http://gtfroom22.blogspot.com

Students should be checking these sites weekly to keep THEMSELVES informed of all the latest village news.

Curriculum:

Language Arts

We continue to read the novel, Stone Fox in class. Students are developing their vocabulary through context and dictionary work. Students are currently working on a poster for a race that will occur in the story and have done background research on the Samoyed dog breed. They will soon be writing a paragraph that incorporates this information.

Math

In 4th grade math, our daily Problems of the Day allow us to practice the components of thorough problem-solving: restating the problem, noting key words that indicate problem-solving methods, solving the problem by outlining the steps taken, and explaining how you know that a problem-solving method is appropriate (or makes sense.) We choose one or more of these to focus on for each problem. We have been spending our time studying expressions and equations this past week. This will lead us in the coming weeks to our first work a grade level algebraic concepts- a very exciting development! We'll have a short (5 problem) quiz on Chapter 5 this Wednesday, so reread those lesson materials to be super comfortable with the material!

In 5th grade math we have finished our first unit, which covered prime factorization and fractions. We're now moving on to study place value, decimals, and relative magnitude. We'll study very large numbers and very small numbers, and learn to round and order these types of numbers.

Social Studies

In social studies, we continue our Native American studies. The newest cultural region we're learning about are the Plains Indians, which have a unique history due to the introduction of western culture by explorers from Europe. Ask your child about this interesting cultural group!

Science

We will continue with our unit, "The Water Planet", throughout the short conference day schedule. We do this by taking morning class periods two time a week to perform our investigations of the water cycle components. The concepts of condensation and evaporation will be our primary focus over the next week or so. As always, the reading we do in our science text will make these ideas more clear after each investigation.

Calendar of Events:

Wed., Sept. 9 -Thur., Sept. 17 - Parent Teacher Conferences - Student Dismissal at 12:30 every day
Sept., 9 - Sept. 17 - Book Faire in the Multi-use room
Wed., Sept. 16 - Mandatory Washington, DC meeting for those considering the trip 6:30 pm
Fri., Sept. 18 - Learning Day for Teachers - No school for students!
Mon., Sept. 21 - School Site Council Meeting 3:00
Tues., Sept. 22 - Parent Principal Exchange 8:15
Wed., Sept. 23 - Destination Imagination meeting 6:00
Fri., Sept. 25 - Spirit Day : HAT DAY!
Fri., Sept. 25 - Learning Plans go home with students


MYSTERY STATE CLUES:
The term dude originated in this state.
This state was the first state to grant women the right to vote.
The JC Penney stores were founded in this state.
This state has the smallest population of all the 50 states.
Which state is it?





Sincerely,

Mr. Roels and Miss Scourkes
Rooms 20 & 21
Rockhopper Village
Portal School