Weekly Reminders 6/1/10

Dear Room 20 & 21 parents and students,

Thank you for the wonderful flowers and cards this last week. As teachers, we are so appreciative of the great families we have here at Portal. Our students truly are the BEST!

Just a quick reminder that our blogsite addresses are:

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

A Note From Ina Johnson, our Art Specialist Teacher:

For the past week I've been mounting and labeling 4th and 5th grade artwork for display at the June 3rd Open House. Almost every student has at least one or two outstanding pieces so the artshow is sure to look fantastic. I will be in the multipurpose room on Thursday, June 3, hanging the artwork. I would love it if you could secure a few parent volunteers to help me put up the art show that morning. Would that be possible? It's a job that would take me and a few parent volunteers a little over an hour to do. If I do it all by myself, it would take me between 5-6 hours. SO it would be fantastic if I could get some help.

Note: Thank you to the wonderful people who have already responded to this note; Ms. Johnson is very grateful for your assistance!

Open House:

Just a reminder that Open House will be from 6:30-7:45pm this Thursday, June 3. There will be a number of exciting things to check out, so please make sure to plan your time accordingly for the evening. We'll see you Thursday!

Exploratorium Field Trip - Chaperone Help Needed - Please!

Thank you for returning our Exploratorium field trip permission forms for our trip on Wednesday, June 9. Each class needs six chaperones. Currently, Mr. Roels' class has five and Miss Scourkes' class has only two! Please won't you consider coming with us as a chaperone? It's a great trip and we could really use your help to break the students up into groups smaller than 10. Not only are ten students hard to manage in such large groups, but it's just not as fun for the students, since they must remain as a whole group, and will have fewer opportunities to see what's of interest to them. Thank you.

Curriculum:

Language Arts

Students continue to read their literature circle books and have discussions with their connections, thoughts, and responses to their story and the characters in their books. They are finishing the last of their Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes work, and are hard at work compiling all anthology items for the year's collection.

Math

Geometry is the theme of our math work until the end of the school year. We are focused on 2-dimensional shapes, symmetry and congruence of shapes, and 3-dimensional shapes (including surface area and volume) before we finish our year. We will also have a cumulative test on Friday to allow students to demonstrate improvements in their knowledge of concepts studied throughout the year.

In 5th grade math we continue with Biz World! Students have begun manufacturing. Using the information from their prototype design, they've estimated time for production of their product. After manufacturing for one day, they've readjusted their business plan and will be working on pricing structure and a marketing plan this week.

Social Studies

In social studies, students will learn the last group of states - The Pacific Northwest Group. They will be tested on these states on Friday, June 11th.

Science

We have completed Investigation #1 of Mixtures and Solutions. We will continue to investigate, as time allows, for the remainder of the school year. Our goal is to have as much hands-on knowledge in this scientific areas as possible! Assessments during this unit will be primarily responses to investigations we've done- these types of assessments emphasize application of facts to a familiar experimental situation. We'll also be preparing ourselves to show our families the iPhotoBook tech projects we completed this past trimester for Open House on Thursday.

Calendar of Events:

Thur. 6/3 Open House 6:30 p.m.
Wed. 6/9 Exploratorium Field Trip 8:30am- 3:30pm ( Please note the return time!)
Wed. 6/9 Promotion Speeches Due (5th graders)
Thur. 6/10 Biz World Bazaar!
Fri. 6/11 Geography Test - Pacific Northwest States
Thur. 6/17 Promotion Exercise
Thur. 6/17 LAST DAY OF SCHOOL. 11:20 DISMISSAL

Mystery State..........

This state has one town on an island.
This state's smallest city park is located in the middle of a road.
This is the only state whose eastern and western borders are formed by water.
This was the home state of actor John Wayne.
Which state is it?


Sincerely,

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