Weekly Reminders 3/12/12

Rockhopper Weekly Reminders
March 12 - March 16


Mark Your Calendars:
Wednesday, March 14th: Explorers Unit Exam
Monday, March 19: Learning Day- no school for students
Tuesday, March 20: Oral Presentations begin- check your schedule!
Thursday, March 22: Conferences start- 12:30 p.m. dismissal throughout the conference period, ending on March 30

Spring Conferences and Technology Showcase

Parent-Teacher Conferences are coming up this month, beginning on Thursday, March 22 and running through Friday, March 30. This year’s conferences will feature a “Technology Showcase” in grades 2-5. In addition to the normal 20
minute meeting between parents, teachers, and students, there will be an additional 20 minute time slot which students will facilitate with their parents either in our computer lab, or in another designated spot on campus where our laptop carts will be set up. Students will showcase all of their awesome technology works in progress, projects that they have completed, as well as demonstrate their skills in using various applications. This technology showcase time slot is flexible, and can either occur before or after the scheduled parent-teacher conference appointment in the classroom (or before or after a siblings conference as well). We hope you enjoy checking out the great strides our techy penguins have been making!

Outdoor School:

We will continue to leave this information regarding cost and forms in the reminders until we have all forms back and filled out completely:

a. The cost for Outdoor School is $310 and the check should be made out to Portal School along with the forms by March 8th.
b. Here is an explanation of what we require with the yellow form:
(copied from an email from the director of Outdoor School)
This form is two sided and we require each student to have SECTION I completed by the parent. We only require SECTION II to be completed by the physician if the student takes prescription medications or if the parent would like their child to have access to the over the counter medications listed on the form. The important thing to note is, in the case of over the counter medication, if a physician does not complete and sign SECTION II then we do not have authorization to administer over the counter medications to that student (this is new this year in order to be in compliance with ed code). If a parent would like their child to have the ability to receive over the counter medication listed while at outdoor science school then they must obtain a physician's signature for SECTION II. There are a few items listed on the form (rubbing alcohol, hydrogen peroxide, Bactine, Vaseline, sunblock, saline eye wash, etc) that are not considered medications. We list these items so that parents are aware of everything that we have in stock in our health office and have the opportunity to indicate if they prefer their child NOT to be given those treatments (in a first aid situation, for example).

Portal Enrichment Program = P.E.P.

Spring Break is coming- we will have no classes during the weeks of April 9-13 and April 16-20 at Portal. What we DO have for those of you who are in town and looking for a good way to spend your days is the Portal Enrichment Program- this is a program of fun and interesting classes for K-5 students taught by members of the Portal staff during our break. Electronic registration forms are available for you to sign up for either week (or both) that P.E.P. is offered at our school- see our last Portal Press for more information!

Mrs. Dominguez Needs Half-Gallon Carton Donations for Science:

If you have any empty and cleaned-out half gallon cartons (orange juice, milk...) Rooms 19 and 24 in Rockhopper Village would love to have one per child by this Friday. We can help them out if we have these paper cartons at home, so bring one in!

Remember Our Chabot Field Trip?

If you were a chaperone on our field trip to Chabot Space and Science Center AND you took some great kid photos while you were there, we would love to have some additional photos of our two classes for the Memory Book folks to use. Submit any photos you have by e-mail, CD-R, or flash drive- we’ll do the rest. Thanks!

Curriculum Flash!

Language Arts:

This week we are beginning our work with our last core literature book of the year- Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes. We will be working hard to capture the spirit of Japan as we proceed through this moving tale of a young girl in post-World War Two Japan and her life in the aftermath of the atomic bomb. As always, we continue to develop our grammatical skills (subject-verb agreement) and our ability to respond to nonfiction literature (Time for Kids.)

Math

4th grade: We are working on our “Perimeter Park” project to start the week. This project requires creativity and precision to be successful, in addition to accurate measurement and calculation skills. Additional work on the project will be done by students as part of this week’s homework. Perimeter Park allows us all to apply our understanding of customary and metric units of measurement, which is the topic of this week’s math curriculum. We’ll cover units of length, as well as capacity and weight, in our exploration of the two measurement systems currently in use in the United States and around the world.

5th grade: (20) • Design a Bedroom Project: We have assigned students a "Design a Bedroom" project that they are responsible for finishing at home. This is a project that addresses multiple standards in mathematics, language arts and promotes art and creativity. Directions on procedures and expectations, as well as the rubric, colored construction paper, and graph paper have also been given to the students. You will need to provide a box, a poster board, and pieces of fabric cut out from old clothes that can be used as window coverings and elsewhere in the room. A box that usually gets recycled in the copying machine area of any office is sufficient for the project. Since this is all about your child's creativity, please do not buy ready made furniture pieces from stores. This project is due on March 30th.

In class, students have completed all operations using decimals and have learned long division. The test on Chapter 14 on Tuesday will provide us with information about the areas where students have achieved mastery of these concepts.

Next Thursday is the first math placement test for the fifth graders. Students should take the test confidently in the strands we have learned so far. They may review the geometry concepts they have learned in fourth grade to familiarize themselves with the vocabulary. It is important that students are not stressed over this test since this is a placement test, and will be used only to place students in the appropriate math classes. There will be many more placement tests in middle school.


Science:

In Rooms 20 & 21, we are enjoying seeing our Keynote presentations on the elements of our choice. It’s especially fun to watch the creative pieces that students prepared to introduce their element! Presentations continue through Thursday in the classroom. We will also be introducing our electronic version of the Rockhopper “Science Fair” activity we’ve conducted in the past. This year’s version will be a technological presentation on one of a variety of topics related to the 3rd trimester science unit entitled “Water Planet.” You’re sure to hear more about this as the week goes on!

Social Studies:

Students will be taking the “Explorers” unit exam this Wednesday, March 14th. Students should continue to review all notes, reread relevant chapters, and utilize all of their resources to prepare for the upcoming test. We played Jeopardy in class to test our knowledge and understanding of the material- it was a BLAST! This Friday, we will learn about the Pacific states!


Name that State!
This state became a state on Valentine's Day.
This state is the top producer of copper in the United States.
The palo verde, which is Spanish for "green stick," is this state's official state tree.
This state is home to Grand Canyon National Park.
Which state is it?