Hello Platte Families,
I hope you are enjoying these longer days and warmer weather! I know we are, except that it's getting really sloppy out with the melting snow. Many students are complaining of leaky boots and wet socks, so you may want to check with your child, and possibly send a spare pair of socks. Also, indoor shoes or slippers are a must!
We have some new pets in our classroom. One of our birds moved to Crow Wing, and two 5 month old finches have joined us. We are hoping one of these is a female, but time will tell as they grow their adult feathers. We also have three new fish, called Tiger Tetras. At last our tank and fish seem to be doing well!
Students are working on animal projects, and will share these next week on Thursday. They have been researching and writing about an animal of their choice, and some are now working on models and displays. Special attention is being given to the internal parts and the classification of these animals.
Our study of early humans now includes Homo habilis, and students are learning about their way of life and habits. We have borrowed a beautiful timeline from the sixth bridge program, and have hung it in our classroom. There are nice information cards to go along with this, which has really helped with information gathering.
We have finished our work with fraction addition, subtraction, and multiplication, and are learning about the decimal system. Students will create a unique model of this, and then we'll be working on decimal operations. Also, everyone is making good progress on the memorization of math facts. This is evident in the timed drills we are doing each week. You can look for these every few weeks in the homework folders.
I have recently been introduced to the book, Psychogeometry, by Maria Montessori. It shows many ways of constructing figures with simple tools like a ruler, compass, and right triangle. Students are framing pictures with this interesting technique, and being very creative in decorating these.
We are using many of the reading strategies that we have practiced lately, and applying them to longer fiction reading texts. Making inferences seems to be the most difficult for students, and they are getting lots of practice "reading between the lines." Idioms have been fun to talk about too. We read a story about a girl with money problems because, "Money burned a hole in her pocket." We began a story this week that is historical fiction, about a family who escapes from slavery.
This week we are adjusting our daily schedule a bit to include Silent Sustained Reading for 30 minutes following our lunch time. Then we will have a 75 minute independent work time, and end the day with read-aloud or journal writing. Group work is very active, especially with the various projects going on, and this happens during our three hour work time in the morning. Preliminary results have been great!
Thank you for your continued support!
Mary
Upcoming Events & Reminders
GRS Soiree @ Can Can Wonderland - Wednesday, March 14th - 6:00 PM - This is the largest gathering and fundraiser that GRS facilitates each year. Hope you can make it!
Noon Dismissal - Guides prep for conferences - Wednesday, March 14th - We will not be eating lunch at school on this day. Busses will pick up bussers, but there will be no Big Canoe Kids Club.
Upper Elementary Homework Due March 6, 2018 - African American Scientists and Inventors
Many African American people have contributed greatly to fields of science and technology, but are often unrecognized for their work due to prejudice and racism, both now and in their lifetimes. Choose a scientist or inventor, read about their work and accomplishments, and their path to science.
Summarize what you have learned, including how that person contributed to science, the things they valued in their work, and how they used their work to benefit others.
You may use classroom encyclopedias, books from the science shelf, or online resources. I’ve included some options for online information below. Note that this is not a biography assignment. You should focus on someone’s work and how that work fits into our culture and how we meet our needs together.
National Geographic (overview summaries only)
Biography.com (more in depth life stories)
Fact Monster (general information and biographies)
Expectations:
Fourth grade students should write a minimum of two organized paragraphs with topic sentences for each paragraph.
Fifth grade students should write a minimum of three organized paragraphs with topic sentences for each paragraph.
Sixth grade students should write a minimum of four organized paragraphs with topic sentences for each paragraph.
All students should edit their work for spelling, punctuation, capitalization, and basic grammar. Please remember to cite your source!
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