Weekly Reminders 12/14/09

Dear Room 20 & 21 parents and students,

In this busy time right before the holidays and our vacation, be sure to take the time to spend time enjoying your family and friends. Children can also feel the stress of the season, so please make sure that they are getting plenty of rest and some "down" time to center themselves. We look forward to the new year and wish everyone the best of a happy holiday season.

Just a quick reminder that our blogsite addresses are:

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

Another Big Thank You!

Thank you to all of you that have donated to our One Warm Coat program. We set a school goal of one warm coat per student, and we have been making progress towards this target. Tomorrow is our last day, so consider donating a gently used coat to those that are less fortunate than we are during this season of giving if you haven't done so already.

Toys for Tots

As we continue in our spirit of giving, Portal is participating in the local Toys for Tots donation program. This worthy program, developed by the U.S. Marines, provides new toys to underprivileged children in our area. Won't you please consider donating a new toy to someone who is truly in need? We have a box inside the office for this purpose. Thank you in advance for all those who participate!

Math Olympiad Pick Up!
If your child is attending Math Olympiads PLEASE make sure that you have made arrangements for pickup ON TIME. Last Olympiad date their were over 30 children who didn't have rides home and wanted to use the office to call their parents. All students are to wait outside of the school office, rain or shine. Parents are to pick up students on time!


Curriculum:

Language Arts

In Language Arts, we are finishing up our second literature circle of the year. Students have had quality discussions with their new groups! In our remaining class time, we continue to work on writing essays and are working on forming strong introductions and conclusions as we revise and edit our drafts. Students are reading their Accelerated Reader books and taking electronic quizzes to demonstrate comprehension. Specific goals for each child in this area of reading are the next step for our classes.

Math

In 4th grade math, we're getting some real life perspective by using some "Menu Math" to create, describe, and apply algebraic expressions to food orders. There's nothing like thinking about a meal to really help someone understand the unknown. Soon, we'll be making our own restaurant menus to "digest" this concept in full!

In 5th grade math we made beautiful snowflake fractals as a fun project before we begin our decimal unit. We will be refining our skills of multiplication and division of decimals and working off of a project based menu to apply the skills we're learning.

Social Studies

We continue our unit on explorers. Students are learning about events that are occurring in Europe and Asia that influenced the explorers to begin their voyages all over the world. Soon we will be applying our knowledge of explorers to hands on projects and written reports.

Science

We're fully into our new unit entitled Living Systems. We are currently working on an individually produced diagram and explanation of the circulatory system's functions. This is a great follow-up to our group work and movement activities of the last week, and our hope is that ALL of us will truly understand the heart, lungs, and all the interconnected parts of the circulatory system.

Calendar of Events:
Mon., December 14: Assembly - Rescheduled Lawrence Hall of Science presentation
Mon., December 14: SSC 3:00 pm
Tues., December 15: Math Olympiads 12:30 pm
Tues., December 15: Barnes and Noble/Willow Street Pizza Night 4:00 pm
Wed., December 16: PSCO 6:30 p.m.
Thur., December 17: Literature Circles 8:10-9:00
Thurs., December 17: Field Trip to the Nutcraker Ballet, Center for Performing Arts - NO HOT LUNCH!
Fri., December 18: Spirit Day: Crazy Hair Day
Mon., December 21: Winter Recess Begins
Mon., January 4: School Resumes

MYSTERY STATE CLUES:
A city in this state has the longest main street in the United States, 33 miles.
You can find this state at 45 degrees north latitude.
The Snake River flows through this state.
The logging industry is important to this state. As a matter of fact, some people note that the state is shaped like a logger's boot!
Which state is it?

Sincerely,

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