Weekly Reminders 1/20/10

Dear Room 20 & 21 parents and students,

We hope you enjoyed the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday. Dr. King's message of peaceful interaction and love toward all is especially appropriate during these difficult times. We can all be leaders for change through the little things we do for one another each day.

This week is going to be particularly stormy, so please plan on arriving earlier at school (7:45am is a great time to arrive) and make sure that everyone in the family is dressed properly for the weather (raincoat, boots if possible, umbrella for non-windy days.)

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. For example, we've been working on proper business letter format in class; this idea arose from a product problem presented in the 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 algebra work by completing our work on menus, algebra posters, and function tables. We'll review problem-solving methods on Wednesday, then take a test on the Chapter 8 & 9 concepts on Friday.

In 5th grade math, we've finished our decimal projects and taken our test on multiplication and division of decimals. The students had a great time creating and sharing different decimal projects. Our next unit of study will be probability.

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 continue Investigation 2, which is focused on vascular plants. We have seen plant systems close up during the past week; now we delve further into the topic through continued reading, experiments, and a response question related to last week's investigation.

Calendar of Events:

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 22 - 4th Grade Math Test - Chapters 8 and 9
Fri, , Jan. 29- Spirit Day (Career Day)



MYSTERY STATE CLUES:
The world's largest elephant fossil is in this state.
This state's legislature has only one house.
Corn and beef are two of this state's top products.
Former president Gerald R. Ford was born in this state.
This state is nicknamed the "Cornhusker State."
Which state is it?


Sincerely,

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