Weekly Reminders 3/20/12

Rockhopper Weekly Reminders
March 20-23


Mark Your Calendars:
Tuesday, March 20- Thursday, March 22: Oral Presentations Rooms 20, 21
Wednesday, March 21: 5th grade math placement test #1 for middle school
Thursday, March 22- Friday March 30: Parent/Student/Teacher Conferences
Thursday, March 22 - Friday March 30: Early Dismissal 12:30 pm every day
Thursday, March 22 - Scholastic Book Fair Begins
Friday, March 30 - 5th grade Bedroom Projects are due
Thursday, April 5 - Field Trip to see the play: Ben Franklin
Thursday, April 5 - Final Geography Test
Monday, April 9 - Spring Recess Begins

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!

Spring Conferences Note:
Due to our very tight schedule with 30 -31 students per room, we would greatly appreciate it if you arrive at your scheduled conference on time, as our conferences are generally back to back and each child’s time slot cannot be extended into the next conference. Thank you!

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!

Curriculum Flash!

Language Arts:

This week we are spending the majority of our time doing our oral presentations of our favorite books from our Reading Contracts. We are looking for strong voices, expressive body language, and clear summations of the book or section of the book we’ve chosen to talk about. We will continue moving along with our work with 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.

Math

4th grade: Perimeter Park has been completed, and this project will allows us as teachers to see if our students understand customary and metric units of measurement and the calculation of perimeter. We’ll begin statistics and graphing this week, and our classes will be doing data collection, single and double bar graph creation, and statistical analysis of data (mean, median, mode, and range.) We’ll even question each other about graphical data- what can you learn from this graph? It should be an entertaining and educational week!

5th grade:
Students will continue to practice estimation and double digit division this week. We will review capacity and equivalent measurements. Students’ decimal tests will be returned for correction and parent signature. Please take a moment to review them with your child.

Science:

In Rooms 20 & 21, we saw some amazing Keynote presentations on the elements of our choice this past week. The creative pieces that students prepared to introduce their element were in many cases the highlight of the presentation! We introduced our electronic version of the Rockhopper “Science Fair” activity we’ve conducted in the past, and students learning their team members and topics to be presented. This week we only have a single day to continue of initial preparation for this project, so we’ll focus on understanding what a good online information is for us as elementary school students, and we’ll talk more about initial research and planning with our teams.

Social Studies:

Students have received their new and final set of states for the year! The geography test will be given on Thursday, April 5 and will include all 50 states. It should be great fun to see how many states and capitals they have learned - we know many students will be going for the “perfect score”! Also this week, students’ Explorer Tests will be returned and sent home for parent signatures. Please take a moment to review the test with your child. Many students did exceptionally well!


Name that State!
The flag of this state was designed by a 13-year-old boy.
This state has 6,640 miles of coastline, more than all other states combined.
William A. Egan was this state's first governor.
This state does not border any other state.
The United States purchased this state from Russia.
Which state is it?