Weekly Reminders 11/14/11

Rockhopper Weekly Reminders
November 14-19

Mark Your Calendars:
Monday- Wednesday, 11/14-16: Rooms 20 & 21 oral presentations!
Wednesday, 11/17: Rockhopper Reading Contracts due
Friday, 11/18 Rooms 20 & 21 I-Check, Investigation 3
Friday, 11/18: Spirit Day: Black & White (Penguin) Day
Monday-Friday, 11/21-25: Thanksgiving break: No school
Monday, 11/28: 4th grade 1st trimester cumulative math test
Thursday, 12/1: “U.S. Presidents” fine arts performance @6:30pm
Monday, 12/5: Native Americans Unit Test



Fine Arts Performance News Update
Costume Notice Coming Home Today!


Attention Parents! Today we will be sending home an information sheet containing the details of each student’s costume needs for their performance. Although there are a few items that we will provide, most of the items will be located by the student and their family for use during our dress rehearsals and the performance. We will make sure your student knows what costume pieces we will be supplying for them.
Treats Sign Up GoogleDoc available for you to use!


Please watch your email for a “treats sign up” document. We would appreciate it if every family would sign up to bring something to our celebration performance night.
A BIG “Thank You” to our parent volunteers!


Thank you to the parents who have generously signed up to help us prepare for our performance! You will be contacted soon by either a parent or teacher regarding your availability and job.



Curriculum Flash!


Language Arts:

This week, students will continue to practice summary writing. Summary writing requires students to be able to write a very general “burrito” topic sentence and identify and sequence the main events of a story. Ask your child this week to tell you about the process of “Name it, Verb it, Big Picture” topic sentence that introduces a summary paragraph.

Reading Contracts/Oral Presentations:

Due this Friday, November 17th. Your child is required to give you an oral summary of the book in order to receive your signature.

Oral presentations are taking place this week. Students are aware of their presentation date and the specific requirements. Please help them manage their time so they are ready for presentation day.

Math

4th grade: Students in our classes are working with division. We will be dividing larger numbers with remainders, regrouping, and noticing patterns when we divide multiples of ten. Our project this week involves divisibility rules; we can’t reveal the details at this time! Let’s just say that it definitely has a Thanksgiving type of theme :) When we return from our break, our 4th graders will be taking a relatively short cumulative test on the 4th grade math concepts covered so far this year. Take a look at our math journals; they should have all the units we have presented in class this year!

5th grade: Students will be continuing to dive deeper into understanding negative numbers and operations. We will take this knowledge and apply it to graphing equations with negative numbers on coordinate planes.

In the near future we will start incorporating our incredible iTouches into the classroom. There are so many uses to enrich the math material. We will be taking our knowledge of negative numbers to the deep sea as we’ll turn into divers in search of an elusive pearl. Divers must know exactly where to dive for the pearl otherwise they may not find it in time. Hopefully their previous experience with number lines will come in handy!




Science:

In Rooms 20 & 21, Investigation 3 in our Living Systems unit is wrapping up before our break. We’ll have an I-Check on Investigation 3 Thursday that will allow us to demonstrate our understanding of the investigation concepts- books and notes will be available for reference during the I-Check.

Social Studies:

Students are currently learning about the tribes in the Eastern Woodland region. Our wampum belt project is scheduled for after Thanksgiving break! A study guide will be going home this Thursday for our final unit exam on all the regional tribes. Students should start reviewing their notes, charts, reading material, and use the study guide as a resource to help them prepare for the test on December 5th.

Reminder: Remember the various websites you can visit to practice your states and capitals, including Quizlet.




Name that State!
The second-oldest city in the nation is located in this state.
This state is named after a British king.
Five other states share a border with this state.
The Girl Scouts were founded in this state in 1912.
Former President Jimmy Carter is a native of this state.
Which state is it?