Newsletter for the Week of 9/14- 9/18

Hello Friends and Families,

It was nice to see many of you at the spaghetti dinner and movie night on Friday. What a great event and a wonderful community! Thank you to the Parent Club and all those who made the evening possible.

Announcements and reminders: See you at Back to School Night Wednesday Sept. 16! The orientation for new families begins at 6:30 in the PAC room with Ms. M. Teachers will deliver their classroom presentations at 7 and again at 7:30.

Field Trip: O'Neill Sea Odyssey. Tuesday October 20th from 7:45 -12:00. Please be sure you are here at the school with your child promptly at 7:45. Space is limited. We are allowed no more than 8 parent volunteers/chaperones. Your child should eat a good breakfast. There are no breaks once on board. Dress comfortably, wear soft-soled sneakers only (no sandals, platforms, heels, or thick-soled shoes allowed) and a jacket (gloves and hats as necessary). This should be a great adventure!

ELA: We have read Chapter 1 in our literature circle book--The Birchbark House.  We will begin the group discussions and comprehension questions this week. It is an insightful and touching story about a Native American girl and her family. This will enhance our history reading on Native Americans for the next few weeks.

Math: We will continue our work on rounding and estimating with whole numbers and using number lines. This has been tricky for many students as the numbers go into the millions for 4th graders and the billions for 5th. We will take time to practice these concepts in groups, as a class and on the computer. There are notes with guidelines that your child receives and files in his/her binder. These are to help with homework and to give them and you support with the concepts and practice.

Science: We will begin our study of magnets this week. There will be hands-on interactive lab work, and this will dove tail nicely into our unit on electricity and circuits. This is always a very interesting and fun topic for students at this level.

Social Studies: We will be reading about the migration routes of the Native Americans who settled this land. There will be some photocopied History Alive chapter reading that will come home as a "second read" on Tuesday and Thursday nights for homework. It is designed to be their nightly reading on those nights. Your child is not expected to do 20-30 additional minutes of reading, unless they love to read!

Writing: We are finishing, editing and typing our preposition poems in class this week. We will probably be able to accomplish that in class.

Grammar: We will be reviewing and practicing the 4 types of sentences and incorporating them into our writing: exclamatory, declarative, imperative, interrogative. This will be in conjunction with simple, complex and compound sentences. This stuff makes our writing so much more fun to read!!

Have a lovely week,

Mrs. Young