Weekly Reminders 1/12/10

Dear Room 20 & 21 parents and students,
We hope you had a good weekend. Here are the weekly reminders for 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

Curriculum:

Language Arts

In Language Arts, we are focusing our energies on our new core literature book, Dear Mr. Henshaw. Writing and comprehension activities will all be based around the content and background provided by this excellent book. Students are now expected to write all assessed class assignments in cursive writing, with the exception of the spelling tests.

Math

In 4th grade math, we're finishing up our math menus for use during our extended Friday math time (we'll solve each other's algebra problems), and we're continuing our algebra work by learning about and analyzing function tables.

In 5th grade math, we continue to refine our skills of multiplication and division of decimals and working off of a project based menu to apply the skills we're learning. Students will be sharing their projects and be tested on concepts this week.

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. This week we begin Investigation 2, which is focused on vascular plants. We are designing and conducting our own experiment to determine how plants get water to their cells- it should be fun!

Calendar of Events:
Tues., Jan.12 - Math Olympiads 12:30
Wed., Jan. 13 - Kitchen Science Due
Mon., Jan. 18- Martin Luther King, Jr. Day- NO SCHOOL
Tues., Jan. 19 - PSCO Meeting 6:30
Wed., Jan 20 - SSC Meeting 3:00
Thur., Jan. 21 - Field Trip to the Children's Theater Center
Fri, , Jan. 29- Spirit Day (Career Day)


MYSTERY STATE CLUES:

Three countries -- France, England, and Spain -- flew their flags over this state at separate times.
Nearly 60 percent of this state is covered by forest.
Coca-Cola was first bottled in this state in 1894.
Cotton is the most important crop in this state.
Which state is it?



Sincerely,

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