We have two weeks to go before the mid winter break which is the week of 2-18-2013. It is important that the students get off to a strong start in the first three weeks of the marking period leading up to the break, so I want to ensure that you will be informed if your child is scoring below a 'C'. In addition to communicating with you using the usual progress reports each week, I will also be making phone calls and sending e-mails to you the parents as well. This should help keep the students on top of their work, and in getting late work in on time. We have a one week window from the time progress reports come out to get missing work done, and requests for missing work need to be in to me by the Friday of the week the progress report came out. Any work turned in beyond the one week window will not be counted. So far, after week one, many parents have requested work, and many students have turned in their late work to help keep their grades up. Thanks for your efforts in this process, I think it will be a definite improvement upon the old system, and will yield more positive results. I had to postpone the party celebrating the success of students who improved upon the fall scores for the district tests. I had questions on the answer sheets that I am awaiting responses on before scanning the results for the writing and reading tests. Therefore, I have scheduled the party to occur on February 15th, the last day before break. We are still in need of classroom supplies, and many students are really in need of school supplies. Many students are in desperate need of a dry erase marker, calculator, pencils, new notebooks, and crayons. Please check with your child on what he/ she needs. At the start of this year, I had 30 scissors, and now I'm down to less than 10, my glue sticks are completely used up, my boxes of crayons have been reduced from 32 to less than 20, my pencils are completely gone, and I only have a handful of dry erase markers. Once my materials are used up, I will not buy more as the school does not provide additional funds for it, and I cannot afford it on top of supplies for science labs, social studies projects, and other instructional supplies. Every day, many kids are requesting pencils, usually the same kids, and all I can offer them is what I find on the floor at the end of the previous day. Our pencil sharpeners are also broken, so if you could purchase a pencil sharpener for your child, I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks for attending to this as soon as you could.
Reading News
Book It sheets are due ASAP. New Book It sheets will go out on Friday, February1st. Missing reading logs are the number one reason why kids struggle to get good grades for this subject. I put the reading logs on the class web site for people to print off if the kids misplace them. I can replace them on a limited basis right away, otherwise it may take a day for me to print new ones off. The logs usually come out on Friday or Monday, so please try to keep up on these.
Math News
On Thursday, we had just under half the class participate in the online tutoring covering chapter 5. The test for chapter 5 will be on Monday. I encourage your child to do the practice test at the end of the chapter to help him/ her study. I also encourage all of the students to click on the link for the recording of the tutoring session which will be available on the class web site. Watch over and review prior to Monday to ensure your child scores the targeted 80% or higher on the test.
Writing News
This week, we looked over sentence parts and distinguished between sentence fragments and complete sentences. Next week, we will look over verb tense and past participles. Our paper will be a nonfiction piece using the text structure 'Cause and Effect'.
Science News
Students are beginning their unit on Force, Energy, and Motion. I am still awaiting on the contest information to be released for the K'NEX/ Cedar Point Thrill Ride Build off where kids have to design a roller coaster out K'NEX Toys. Students will also begin in the next 2 weeks to build their balloon cars for the big race in March.
S. Studies News
We are about to wrap up our study on the Mesoamerican Native American empires. Next week we will wrap the chapter with a test on Thursday, and a debate on Friday. Some of the kids had to develop a case that these Native Americans were savages as the Spanish believed them to be. Other kids will have to argue that these were highly civilized and sophisticated people. We'll let you know how it turns out! We are in need of helpers for our Fiesta Day coming up on the last Thursday of March. IF you are willing to help, please let me know.
Hopefully the ground hog will give us good news this weekend! Stay warm and have a great week!
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