Back in School!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday! The winter holidays will soon be upon us, so I hope your children are gearing up for a whirlwind 3 weeks before our Winter Break! We were so proud to have won the WalkAround trophy for most money raised in the 4th and 5th grade classes - thank you for your great support of our school and your children! Here are some of the things we are working on:

In language arts, we are almost at an end to our "Nanowrimo" novel-writing experiences! Most of the students have had alot of fun writing their novels and improving their writing skills. During the month of December, we will work on revising and editing our novels before they are published. Hopefully, all students will be able to reach their word count goals! We will have a special party next week to celebrate our long, hard work in completing the novels! Over the next few weeks, we will be reading selections from our reading textbook and also working on summary writing.

In math, students are speeding through our math curriculum. I am very lucky to have such a bright group of children who learn so quickly and are able to master new concepts easily. For the fifth graders, we are now working on decimals (multiplication and division) while the 4th graders are working on long division with 3-digit dividends. Interspersed with these lessons, we also work on problem-solving tasks (MARS, Problem of the Month). Next Saturday, Mrs. Kamath and I will attend a math conference down in Monterey in order to refresh our own math repertory. We hope to use some of the lessons from the conference with our students the following week!

We will embark this week on a new Science Unit for 4th grade - The Solid Earth- which reviews rocks and minerals and properties of the earth. 5th graders will begin "The Water Planet" which will include astronomy, the planets, and other concepts. On Friday, 4th grader will bring home their science notebook from our first unit "Environments", so be sure to put it somewhere safe so that they can review it in 5th grade before the STAR science test, which covers science concepts studied in both 4th and 5th grade.

The Holiday book fair will run all week long in our GLC - students will be allowed to shop at recess and lunch time. If you send money to school with your child, be sure they keep it some where safe so that they don't lose the money. The book fair will also be held next Sat., 12/3 for adult holiday shoppers!

Finally, we have begun a pen pal correspondence with high school students from Lynbrook - the class was very excited to receive their first letters from their new pen pals this month! We have almost completed our response letters and will be sending them off this week. We hope to meet our pen pals at the end of the school year as well!

Week of November 7

Room 17 is off to a quick start on their novels that they are writing during the month of November. The entire concept is part of "National Novel Writing Month", or NaNoWriMo for short. Students have done alot of work planning their characters, settings, and plots. We spend at least twenty minutes every school day working on our novels - students are also encouraged to write at home. Each student has set a word count goal for November - ask them about their goal! In addition to working on their novels, students are working on writing summaries over the next few weeks.

Having finished out last class novel, "From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler", students will now read selections from our textbooks until Thanksgiving. Our next class novel will be "The Watsons Take Birmingham", which is an historical fiction book.

In science, we are now working on our Drug Education Unit which places a great deal of emphasis on students setting goals for themselves and learning to avoid situations involving drugs, along with making the best choices for meeting their goals. After the Thanksgiving break, we will start a new science unit, "The Solid Earth" which is all about rocks and minerals.

In social studies, 4th graders are working on a Native American project in small groups - they have each been assigned a California tribe to research and create a poster which illustrates all aspects of the tribe's lifestyle. This project is due Monday, Dec. 5.

In math, 4th graders are learning how to multiply numbers by double digits and use division as an inverse operation. 5th graders are learning how to multiply and divide fractions. Please practice these skills at home with them also.

Just a reminder - students are expected to practice online with Spelling City for the weekly words at least 30 minutes per week. I am able to track online which students are completing their weekly activities, and will be talking to students who are not completing all their online activities each week.

Just a reminder - there is no school on November 11 - Veteran's Day!

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