Weekly Reminders 1/4/10

Dear Room 20 & 21 parents and students,

Welcome back! We hope you had a joyous holiday season! Much of the academics we were working on before the break continues. As the new year begins, we encourage all of you to set goals for yourself for personal growth and happiness. Of course, our students can always refer to their existing goals for inspiration!

Just a quick reminder that our blogsite addresses are:

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



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 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 getting some real life perspective by making our own restaurant menus to "digest" the algebraic concepts presented in Menu Math to the fullest!

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.

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 now learning about more of the human body's systems- the digestive and excretory systems. We will also do our best to complete our individually produced diagram and explanation of the circulatory system's functions.

Calendar of Events:

Fri., Jan. 8- Science I-Check: Investigation 1 (the Body's Systems)
Wed., Jan. 13 - Kitchen Science Due
Mon., Jan. 18- Martin Luther King, Jr. Day- NO SCHOOL
Thur., Jan. 21 - Field Trip to the Children's Theater Center
Friday, Jan. 29- Spirit Day (Career Day)


MYSTERY STATE CLUES:

• The oldest rock in the world, dated at 3.8 billion years old, was found in this state.
• The blueberry muffin is the official state muffin of this state.
• This state's motto is L'Etoile du Nord, which is French for "Star of the North."
• Charles M. Schultz, who drew the "Peanuts" cartoons, was born in this state.
• This state has 12,000 lakes.
• Which state is it?


Sincerely,

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