Week of October 3

Conferences begin this Thursday, Oct. 6 and continue through Friday, Oct. 14. Please make an effort to be on time for your appointment - we are very tightly scheduled throughout the conference period. Just a reminder - school will be dismissed at 1:00 PM on conference days, although students will eat lunch here between 12:00 and 12:30 during those days. I'm looking forward to meeting all of you and your students to review their goals for this year!

Many thanks to all the parents and students who showed up for WalkAround on Saturday! It was a perfect day for walking, and many of our students brought out their walking shoes! Several students walked over 100 laps in the 5 hour long walk, which was a mighty accomplishment! Woo hoo! Now, to see if we reached our goal to get a classroom trophy - stay tuned!

There has been some confusion about the 4th grade field trips that I wanted to clear up - on most field trips, I must split our fourth grade group in half and one group of 9 goes with Mrs. Horner's class and the other group of 9 goes with Miss To's class. Half of us went on the field trip to Deer Hollow Farm last Thursday, while the other half will go on Oct. 20. I hope that this clears up any misunderstandings.

This week we will begin reading a new class novel "The Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler" - this book won the Newbery Medal 25 years ago, and is still widely considered to be a great book for 4th - 5th graders. We have many comprehension and vocabulary activities planned for this unit, and students will be allowed to bring the book home as necessary.

In math, 4th graders will finish Unit 2 in our book and begin Unit 3 this week, which centers on multiplication/division facts and strategies. 5th graders are already working on Unit 3, which involves algebraic equations and other concepts. We have also been working on a "Problem of the Month" where students are trying to figure out a staircase problem using triangular numbers - very challenging! A pre-test will be given to 4th graders this week on Unit 3, in order to determine who is on independent contract for this unit.

In science, 5th graders continue to learn about the systems in the human body and 4th graders are learning about food chains and webs. Both science and social studies will be put on hold over the next 10 days during conferences.