Week of March 2-6

Important Dates:

*No School Monday 3/2

*ISAT testing week of 3/2 and 3/9 & 3/10

*End trimester two 3/6

*Conferences: Week of 3/9

Classroom Chatter

This week and Monday and Tuesday of next week, our students will be completing the Illinois Standards Achievement Tests (ISAT). Information came home last week regarding our schedule and some practice work.

Science

We will continue with chapter 9 this week. This week student will learn about the water cycle.

Social Studies

We will continue with Egypt this week. Students will learn about mummies and the mummification process.

Please visit the blog of your child's Reading teacher to find out information for Reading, Language Arts, and Spelling in that classroom.

Spelling

There will not be a spelling test this week nor spelling homework.

English and Reading

Students will be taking the ISAT test this week during this time.

Please visit the blog of your child's Math teacher to find out information for that Math class.

Math

Students will be taking the ISAT test this week. Our chapter 7 test is scheduled for March 11.

Week of February 23-27

Important Dates:
*Spring Pictures Thursday 2/26
*No school Monday 3/2
*ISAT testing Week of 3/2 and Monday and Tuesday of 3/9
*Spring Conferences Week of 3/9


Classroom Chatter:
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Spring Picture Day - All students will be photographed. Please notify your student's teacher if you do not want an individual portrait taken of your child. Look Before You Buy: Send no money now - View your portraits before you buy. Your finished portrait package will be sent home for review. Simply return any un-used portrait sheets with your payment.


Parents, please look for confirmation slips to come home with your child this week with your conference date and time. This is for those parents who've requested a conference from me. Please sign and return it to me as soon as possible. Thanks.


Science
We will begin our next unit of study on weather. Chapter 9 teaches us about weather and the water cycle. We will begin with lesson one to learn about where water is found on earth.


Social Studies
We will continue studying about Ancient Egypt. We will finish reading Eye on Ancient Egypt in class to learn about mummies, pyramids and Cleopatra.


Please visit the blog of your child's Reading teacher to find out information for Reading, Language Arts, and Spelling in that classroom.


Spelling
We will skip the writing unit L. 18. This week is L. 19 words spelled with or. The test will be Friday. This week's workbook pages are 101-104 and due on Thursday. ABC order on Thursday. We will take a pretest Monday.


English
We will continue with expository writing.


Reading
We will be reading some non-fictional passages and responding to these texts. We will continue to work in our Test Ready booklets to prepare for the upcoming ISAT tests. These books have lessons to review prefix, suffix, root words, synonyms, antonyms, vocabulary, and comprehension. Don't forget January/February's book report is due Thursday 2/26.


Please visit the blog of your child's Math teacher to find out information for that Math class.


Math
We will continue with chapter 7 and begin our study of measurement. We also will be taking a division 4 this week. Students also will be working on some problem solving and writing written explanations of their steps they completed to solve these problems with a t-chart. Due to some student absences last week, I will show examples of geometry projects this week for the students to get ideas. They are due 3/16.

Week of February 16-20

Important Dates:
*No school Monday 2/16 Presidents' Day
*Spring Pictures 2/26
*No school Monday 3/2
*ISAT testing week: March 4-6 and March 9
*Spring Conferences: Week of March 9th



Classroom Chatter:
Enjoy the day off on Monday for Presidents' Day.

A note was sent home on Friday regarding spring parent/teacher conferences. They are being held on an "as needed" basis with your child's homeroom and/or math teacher. If you are interested in scheduling a conference, please fill out the form that was sent home and return it to me by Friday, 2/20. Once all requests have been received, a conference date/time will be provided for you to confirm.


Science
We will be taking the test on Ch. 5 on Wednesday.



Social Studies
We began our exploration of Ancient Egypt. Students will be reading the book, Eye on Ancient Egypt to learn about pyramids, pharaohs, and mummies oh my!

Please visit the blog of your child's Reading teacher to find out information for Reading, Language Arts, and Spelling in that classroom.

Spelling
This week is L. 17. It is a review unit from lessons 10-16. A practice test will go home on Monday. This is what Friday's test will look like but with words from lessons 10-16. The workbook pages for this week 90-93 and are due on Thursday. Thursday's homework will have a worksheet that will come home on Thursday.

English
We will spend the next few weeks on expository writing. Much of the writing we've done in class has been together. Over the next few weeks, students will be writing more independently.

Reading
We will read The Ballad of Mulan this week to continue our study of inference. There will not be a quiz on vocabulary. Don't forget the book report for January/February is due Thursday 2/26.

Please visit the blog of your child's Math teacher to find out information for that Math class.

Math
We will begin chapter 7 on time and measurement. Students will begin learning about telling time and elapsed time. We will also be doing problem solving and writing extended responses. We will be taking a mad minute in division 4's this week. Also, information about the geometry project went home today. It is due Monday, March 16th.





h 16th.

Week of February 9-13

Important Dates:

*Wednesday 2/11 District Spelling Bee 1:00pm

*Friday 2/13 Box Top Pizza party

*Friday 2/13 Valentine's Day party 1:30pm

Classroom Chatter

We earned a pizza party for turning in the most Box Tops. We will enjoy a pizza lunch on Friday. Thank you PTO!

Friday is our Valentine's Day party. Parents who are running the party can come by 1:15. Our party begins from 1:30-2:15! If your child would like to bring in Valentines to pass out, there will be a time in the morning to do this.

Science

We will finish up chapter 5. This week students will learn about food webs. Check out this great website Miss Griffin showed the class on food webs:

http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/content/animals/kidscorner/foodchain/foodchain.htm

The test is scheduled for Wednesday 2/18. A study guide will come home this week.

Social Studies

We will begin our next unit of study, Ancient Egypt.

Please visit the blog of your child's Reading teacher to find out information for Reading, Language Arts, and Spelling in that classroom.

Spelling

L. 16 words are 1+1+1 (1 vowel, 1 consonant after the vowel, 1 syllable) words that end in -ed and -ing. The pretest will be on Monday. The workbook pages for this week are p. 85-88 and are due on Thursday. The ABC order will be on Thursday. The test is Friday.

English

We've done a great job learning about expository writing. We've learned how to write an introduction paragraph using a hook for our attention getter, stating our opinion and previewing our support. We will continue with expository writing and working on transitions and focus on writing the body. In addition, we will be finishing up unit 5 on Adjectives and Adverbs. We will learn about the difference between to, two, and too. Students will take a review on adverbs on Tuesday and a Unit Review on Wednesday. The test is scheduled for Friday 2/13.

Reading

Mulan has been postponed. We finished up Stone Fox by working on a flap book in Stone Fox while watching the movie version Stone Fox. We then compared and contrasted the book to the movie. We will hold off on Mulan for another week and do some beginning activities on inferences. We will then read Mulan to practice inferencing skills the following week. There still will not be a vocab test on Mulan.

Please visit the blog of your child's Math teacher to find out information for that Math class.

Math

This week we will take a mad minute on division 3's. We will finish up our geometry unit with volume, problem solving with geometry, a checkpoint and the test. The test is scheduled for Friday 2/13.