Rockhopper Weekly Reminders
September 17th-21st, 2012


Mark Your Calendars:
• September 17th-20th - Parent Teacher Conferences & Book Fair, 12:30 dismissal
• Friday, September 21st- Learning Day (No School)
• Monday, September 24th- Power of One- Anti-bullying Assembly
• Tuesday, September 25 - Room 21 to NASA
• Thursday, September 27 - Room 20 to NASA
• Friday, September 28th- Learning plans go home
• Friday, September 28th- Spirit Day: Hawaiian Day
• Saturday, September 29th: Family Fun Night!
• Tuesday, October 2nd- Lunch on the Lawn

Conferences:
Conferences will continue through Thursday; please plan accordingly for 12:30 dismissal time during conferences. We’d like to remind all families to arrive promptly for their conference- most teachers will have as many as six conferences in a row on the scheduled dates! Also, students MUST attend the conference with their parents; no conferences will be conducted without the student in attendance. We are looking forward to meeting with the rest of you!

Book Fair Help Needed!
The Book Fair will be open from September 12th-20th. If you are interested in helping run the Book Fair, then please sign up with Kajal Mehta Arora kajalm@hotmail.com

Curriculum Flash!
Language Arts
This week we go more in depth in our reading of Island of the Blue Dolphins. Students will be reading Chapters 3-5 as a whole group, and we’ll be practicing our informal responses to literature during this time. We will also summarize one of the chapters to practice expository paragraph form and answer comprehension questions related to the reading. In our Language Arts Centers, we will work with prefixes, create our science Solid Earth notebook cover page, map the terrain of The Island of the Blue Dolphins, and do a little background research on the Aleutian people, natural elements and geography connected to the story.

Math
4th grade: Our work this week focuses on the operation of subtraction. We’ve been using manipulatives to connect the algorithm to the actual process of finding the difference between two quantities- very enlightening to many of our students! We have seen the true need to regroup in order to take away quantities of real items. Our classes are also continuing to develop their mathematical reasoning and communication skills with Problems of the Day connected to our current studies.

5th grade:
In math, students will continue with their problem solving skills with a new POW. We’ll also finish our One Grain of Rice exponents project, which includes creating a two column table of constant growth vs. exponential growth data. We then will create a double line graph to emphasize the differences between the two data sets. Finally, we’ll write a detailed paragraph about the graph comparison. Next, we’ll continue our pattern explorations, while looking at decimal place value.


Social Studies:
Last week, the students did such a stellar job making their salt dough maps of California! This week, we will be painting our maps and adding labels of the four main regions, bordering states, major landforms, cities, and bodies of water. A BIG thank you to our parent volunteers who have been assisting us with this project. If you are planning on coming in this week to help, please be sure to check in at the front office to pick up your volunteer badge. Thank you!

Science
Investigation Two: Scratch Test begins this week. We observe unidentified minerals (Part 1), develop our vocabulary to put our observations into words accompanying our illustrations, and test for hardness (Part 2) to help differentiate between similar minerals. A Response Sheet will allow us to see if our students can apply their understanding of the investigation to a related scenario. It should be a good week (and beyond!)

CA Trivia:

What East Coast state is parallel with San Francisco in latitude?