Rockhopper Reminders September 9-13

Rockhopper Weekly Reminders
September 9- September 13


Mark Your Calendars:
Monday, September 9th - Tuesday,September 17th: Goal Setting Conferences. Minimum days. Dismissal 12:30.
Book Fair dates are Sept. 9-16 hours: 12:30-3:30 p.m.
Online book fair page: http://bookfairs.scholastic.com/bookfairs/cptoolkit/manage.do?method=manage
Friday, September 13th - fifth grade math quiz on chapter 1 and place value through billions in chapter 3 lesson 2.
Friday, September 20th - Learning Day. No school for students.


Dear Parents,
Here is our first newsletter.

Curriculum Flash!
Language Arts
We’re excited to introduce the Reading Zone! The Reading Zone is designed to allow students to examine their reading and understand themselves as readers. The intention is to offer students opportunities to read for the pure enjoyment of reading and to dive deeper into their thinking. A variety of mini lessons that relate to reading text will be included as part of the reading lesson. For example, book recommendations, book reviews, identifying purpose, main ideas, vocabulary development, etc. While students read in the zone, the teacher roams the room quietly to conference with individual students. The goal is to foster a love and passion for reading literature with quality.

In addition to the Reading Zone last week, we read “Akiak” by Robert Blake in the Houghton Mifflin books. Students read the story in pairs and summarized it through a “road map”. This story will launch us into the core literature book “Stone Fox” which we will start very soon. Both stories have common threads and students will understand the connections between the two stories. To begin, we will build background knowledge by researching where the story takes place (Wyoming) and the lifestyle of rural living.

In preparation for the conferences/upcoming year, students were asked to write goals. Students thought about their strengths and weaknesses. They wrote thoughtful reflections of themselves and identified areas of growth. In addition to writing goals last week, students wrote in all academic areas of science, social studies, and in math.

Math:
4th grade:
This year the 4th graders have started the year with a bang! Students are incorporating the 8 Mathematical Practices as they complete their daily work and begin problem solving. The “Problem of the Day” has been introduced as a multi-step problem solving format that will be used throughout the year. We have reviewed place value and are currently reviewing rounding skills.

5th grade:
We have begun the year with our Algebra unit. In order to get students excited in math we did several activities that made them curious and engaged. Students looked at 100s chart for patterns, discovered the Fibonacci sequence, integrated art with math, learned place value through billions, and learned how mathematicians write large numbers using exponents. In the coming week, we will learn about common factors, and the greatest common factors, hone in on some vocabulary words, and prepare for a quiz that is tentatively planned for Friday (9/13). Students will also have opportunities to show their communication skills through problem solving.

Science:
The first two weeks of science were devoted to the scientific method; students performed a splatter experiment to become familiar with each step of the process. We will be reinforcing the scientific method throughout the year; students can apply it to their kitchen science experiment, which will be due on October 23rd. Through occasional kitchen science experiments, our hope is that science will be relevant, fun, and recurring at home and at school.

Our first unit of study this trimester will be Living Systems! We will begin the unit by exploring the needs of all living organisms. Students will participate in an activity called “Alive or Not,” which will require them to make predictions, work collaboratively, justify their thinking, and communicate clearly. We will then move on to the various systems of the human body.

Social Studies:
It’s been an exciting beginning to our study of American history! We kicked off our first week of Social Studies by exploring the questions: What is history? What is America or American? What is Social Studies? Students collaborated in groups and delved deep into their background knowledge to name American people, places, dates, and terms that they already knew. We then entered our ideas into the computer to create a Wordle. What is a Wordle, you ask? Have your child explain how a wordle converts words and phrases into a sort of linguistic graph! Our “Gallery Walk” in week two was a big hit as students visited the Multi-Purpose Room to circulate around tables loaded with American “artifacts.” The children were asked to draw connections between what they were observing and what is America(n). Our lesson continued in week three when students chose “artifacts” from home to create galleries in our classrooms. This week we are wrapping up our introductory lesson by mapping our artifacts onto a timeline to establish a perspective of the 500 years of American history we will be studying this year!

Mystery State Clues:
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?