Week of February 25-29

Important Dates:
*Science Quiz Thursday 2/28
*Spelling Test Friday 2/29
*Spirit Day Friday 2/29 Backwards SHIRT day


Classroom Chatter:
I sent home information regarding spring conferences on Friday. Spring conferences are scheduled on an "as needed" basis. I will not be requesting a conference for all students. Please read the information sent home and check off if you would like a conference (phone or in person) or if you don't feel a conference is necessary. Please return forms to me by Tuesday, 2/26. I will then send home a date and time for you to confirm our appointment.

Spelling
L. 24 words are spelled with -ear. The list will go home Monday. There will be a test on Friday.

English
We finished up writing friendly letters. We wrote letters to Matthew Millbrant's cousin. He is in the Navy and currently is in Iraq. We had a lot of fun writing to him! Next week we will begin Unit 5 in English. Unit 5 teaches us about capitalization and punctuation.

Reading
We will continue working on L. 5 in our reading workbooks. This week we will work on characterization, situation (what is happening in a story), setting (where and when the story takes place), and character traits (personal qualities), similes, onomatopoeia, and forms of literature (fiction, non-fiction, poetry, fable). We also will continue to work on reading responses using the "hamburger" model to guide us. We are saving samples we do in class in our reading folder.

Science
We will be having a quiz on Seasons, Eclipse, and Planets on Thursday. A study guide went home Friday. This week we will be in the computer lab working on space brochures about a planet. Students also will begin working on creating a space game. That will bring us to the end of our space unit. We will start animals next week.

Social Studies
Due to a field trip that is scheduled in April to Downers Grove, we are going to hold off on Ch. 3 in social studies for some time. We will begin our Downers Grove unit learning about the history of the community of Downers Grove and all about what Downers Grove is like today. Our field trip to Downers Grove is scheduled for April 14th. We will be taking a bus tour of Downers Grove and going out for pizza in downtown Downers Grove.

Math
We will finish up our Geometry unit with a checkpoint on Monday. We will play a review game and the test is scheduled for Thursday. We will be taking Mad Minutes on division 2's this week. We will also work on problem solving and t-charts.