March update

I want to first of all thank all of the families who bought tickets to our family dance! It is a great way to show your support for our school and have fun at the same time.

In class, we have started a new science project. It began as a simple real-life math problem. I recently purchased three 30 gallon tanks for emergency water. The class figured out that my family and I have approximately 30 days of water stored. One of our classmates, Chris, asked, "What about my family's emergency water supply?" Afterwards, we started discussing different types of natural disasters and their impact on people. Rather than be frightened, we decided it would be most powerful to change our worry into action. We decided that we are each going to research a natural disaster and report to our community what to do in each event and what to have prepared in our disaster kits. In addition to our research reports and presentations, each student will be writing a disaster plan that will need some parent input. Students will contribute some items to a disaster kit that we are making together. Once we have assembled the kit, we will be auctioning off the kit to one lucky family.

This week in our math we are learning about prime factorization and factor trees. Ask your child about the Fundamental Theorem of Arithmetic. We are also comparing the different methods we are using for multiplication.

This week we celebrated our writing that we have published this week. I had so much fun listening to all of the wonderful stories that the children have written. I especially enjoyed Kyle's story about the zombie on the playground. I am amazed at how wonderful our stories are and how far we have evolved as writers. The students are using figurative language and learning how to give positive feedback to their peers. Keep up the great work class!