Update January 24th

Wow, this short week sure has flown by quickly!  In honor of the holiday and day off from school we had on Monday, we did a mini unit on Martin Luther King Junior this week.  I read aloud a short biography of this great man's life one day and students then watched his famous "I Have a Dream" speech.  We spent several days talking about why Dr. King was an important person in the history of the United States.  Students even wrote their own dreams and shared them with the class. 

We continued with our Response to Literature unit this week and as a class we finished writing a rough draft together of a response to the short story "Jack and Billy".  For now students are being asked to write a 3 paragraph response.  The first paragraph is the introduction, the second is the body, and the third and final paragraph is the conclusion.  Next week the class will be reading another short story and will be writing a 3 paragraph response all on their own. 

In math we finished up unit 5 on multiplication with larger numbers and took the unit test.  I will have the tests graded and returned to the class next week.  On Friday we started our January/February Problem of the Month, Miles of Tiles.  Next week we will begin the next unit which will start off with division of larger numbers and working with remainders. 

In science I gave the students back their I-Check quiz from the first investigation of our current unit (Electricity and Magnetism) and I was over all very pleased with how they did.  This week we started our next investigation and learned more about electricity and making circuits.  Students are really excited about all the hands on science they are getting to do with this unit.  You may have noticed that your child is bringing home more science homework lately.  My reason for this is that we only have each science kit for a limited amount of time before it has to be returned and then sent onto another school.  Since I want to spend as much of our class time together doing science (all the really cool hands on stuff) I am going to have them do more of the reading and writing at home.  Most of the work will be writing answers to the review questions from the book and finishing up their conclusions for each lab.  We will always start the conclusions in class but many times they will need to be finished at home.  Students are very aware of my expectations for their conclusions but if you have any questions, please feel free to ask. 

This week we were very lucky to have our first art lesson as part of the 12 week program funded by our generous Home and School Club.  This week's lesson focused on Line and Shapes.  Students were very engaged and seemed to enjoy the lesson.  I can't wait to see the finished products they produce!