Thursday, May 1st

Happy May!!!
We had a busy morning working with angles.  We worked to describe them as turns and degrees.  Students did great with this activity.  They utilized a clock as a reference and have some practice problems for homework tonight.

Students also chose their influential person for their end of the term summative.  They will be completing research on their person, gathering important information about their life, their beliefs, and how they stood up for their beliefs.  There is an opinion piece their summative as well.

WOW!!!!  I was so surprised and am (once again) overwhelmed by the generosity and kindness you all have shown me and my family.  I can't thank you enough for the wonderful surprise baby shower and sweet gifts.  We had a wonderful time celebrating this afternoon.  I will never forget it!

A FEW REMINDERS:
If you have not yet returned your permission form for our field trip on Tuesday, please send it in tomorrow.
Please continue to send in field day shirts.  We need these ASAP, so there will be time enough to decorate them.
MAP testing will be Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday of next week.
Our last exploration will be next Friday.

Have a wonderful evening!  See you tomorrow!

Tuesday, April 29th

Who needs power to learn? NOT US!!!  We had a busy and productive morning, even with the lights off.

Students worked diligently to summarize a nonfiction read aloud about Harriet Beecher Stowe.  They worked to provide details from the text, as well as give their opinion about Harriet Beecher Stowe's work.

We practiced again with protractors today.  Students worked to measure acute, obtuse, and reflex angles.  We also practiced drawing the angles ourselves.

It was getting rather warm in our classroom with no air conditioning, so we took a break outside for some independent reading.

Students began working on a close read about the Seneca Falls Convention....ask your child to tell you more!

We then played a review game for Social Studies.  Students enjoyed competing against each other and discovered that they have some studying to do this evening.  Students should read their social studies study guide this evening.

I hope you all have your power restored and are safe again as storms roll through this evening.  See you tomorrow for our last day of CRCT testing and another great day!

Field Trip May 6th

Our class will be taking a field trip on Tuesday, May 6th!!!!  This will be an all day event at Welcome All Park.  We will board the busses in the morning and return in the afternoon.

Permission forms were sent home today.  Please return them as soon as possible.

Also, I am in need of one or two parent volunteers to chaperone this trip.  Please contact me at csanders@csdecatur.net if you are interested.

Thank you!!

Monday, April 28th

Happy Monday!

We had a busy morning testing.  Tomorrow will be our final day CRCT testing.

We continued our day with a Jeopardy review game for CRCT Social Studies.  Students should read through and study their social studies guide that was sent home last week.

We took a look at Ain't I a Woman, a famous speech made by Sojourner Truth.  Students enjoyed reading and watching this speech being read.  We analyzed this speech by answering some response questions with our tables and as a class.  Students also wrote a brief opinion of the speech and it's impact then and now.

Check out this great reading of Ain't I a Women by Kerry Washington.

Ain't I a Woman

We also looked at the characteristics of a biography.  Students are encouraged to check out biographies from the media center.  They will be asked to write a biography for a portion of their end of the term summative.

See you tomorrow!

Homework: Read over social studies CRCT guide.

Thursday, April 24th

We had another busy morning of testing.  Students completed the English-Language Arts portion of the CRCT this morning.  They will be taking math tomorrow.

For reading tonight, students can read through some of the math practice papers that were sent home earlier this week.  They can review problems, check for accuracy, and work out problems.  It is not necessary that they complete all of the assignments sent home.  Please spend no more than 30 minutes looking over this material this evening.

We measured angles today!!!  Students were introduced to protractors and practiced using them to measure angles.  We discussed the importance of using our knowledge about angles to help us determine the appropriate measurement (ex: an acute angle is less than 90 degrees, therefore 120 degrees would be an incorrect measurement).  Ask your child to tell you more!

Thank you for coming to school on time every day!!!  Continue to get plenty of rest, and eating a healthy breakfast.

See you in the morning!!

Wednesday, April 22nd

Happy Wednesday and happy CRCT!!!

We had a busy morning of testing.

We followed up with lunch and recess and then headed back to the classroom for some work with sentence fragments, phases of the moon, and women's suffrage.

Students analyzed a political cartoon from the women's suffrage movement.  They looked for characters or objects that could be symbols, important words or phrases, and the message of the cartoon. Ask your child to tell you more!

See you in the morning!  Don't forget to read a few things from your papers that were sent home to practice tonight.  This can be your 30 minutes of reading.

Monday, April 21st

We had a busy morning.  Students worked to define, identify and draw perpendicular lines this morning.  They utilized their knowledge of angles, and their right angle template to create, and measure their own perpendicular lines.

We have begun a new read a loud called The Hope Chest.  Students took a closer look at some unfamiliar words and figurative language used in chapter 1.  They then worked to answer some inferencing questions and create a chapter 1 summary.

We continued our discussion of democracy today.  We took a closer look at the goal of democracy to provide for the common good and what that means.  Students worked briefly to come up with some things at our school that people may disagree about.  They shared a few of the problems that they came up with.  These problems were put into a container and each group pulled at random one of the problems.  The groups were challenged to come up with a solution to the problem for our school community (students, teachers, staff, parents).  They were given the following guidelines when creating their solutions:

1. The solution must do what is best for the majority of people.
2. The solution must not be unfair to others.
3. The solution must be possible.
4. The solution must not discriminate against particular groups of people.

Students gained a new perspective on the challenges faced by a government working to promote the common good.  Ask your child to tell you more!

Homework: Read for 30 minutes, Math, Spelling (due tomorrow, test tomorrow)