Short Week

This week has been a very busy week indeed. We have been finishing up our science posters/presentations on the human bodies. Nick, Chase, Isaac, and Abdullah taught the class about cells by making "edible" cell out of cookies and graham crackers. It was so much fun and tasty too. Our personal narratives are getting finished up as well. Please make sure that your child has access to a gmail account for language arts. It will save me a tremendous amount of time by saving work directly on to the account instead of a flash drive. It also ensures that work will not become lost since the work is saved to the internet. A gmail account will also allow you to sign up for Khan Academy, which is a web site that is great for reinforcing basic math skills. Another good site for basic math skills is Sumdog. I have noticed that some students are struggling with the current math activities because some knowledge of basic math facts are missing. These sites are a great way to get some extra practice with and they have fun games too.

For math this week we have been learning about factors, prime and composite numbers, arrays, and square numbers. We also figured out our class average heart beats per minute. It was 84 beats per minute! Don't forget that tomorrow is class picture day and that Veterans' day is this Friday, so no school.

Happy November

I hope everyone had a happy Halloween on Monday. Please remember that school policy is that candy and sugar drinks are to be left at home. Many children having been bringing candy and are spiking their blood sugar levels. It is best to leave candy at home because too much sugar is not healthy for developing children.

Don't forget that next week is picture day. I will be sending photo order forms home with the students today. Our class will have their pictures taken on Thursday, November 10th. Also, we are selling Rubio's this Friday for $4.00.

This week book reports for our independent reading books were due. Several students did not complete the assignments. We discussed at our class council what we could do to make sure students are accountable for completing their work. The class decided that there was in fact enough time given during class time to finish the assignment. They also noted that our class constitution states that we will have little or no homework. However, the class agreed that if work is not completed by the class decided due date, then the work needs to be taken home.

Today we are finishing up our science body posters and the factor game for math. Please take a moment and have your child share what they have learned in these subjects. Also, our personal autobiographical narratives are going to be completed next week. I would like every parent to sign their child up for a gmail account. The purpose is to be able to access Google documents to write their papers on. This will enable you and me the ability to access their written assignments and make notes and print their writing. It also eliminates the needs to have to save information to a USB drive, since it saves automatically on the internet. These accounts need to be managed by you because the owner of the account needs to be at least 16 years old. The gmail account will only be used for Google documents. To sign up click here.