Please remind your student to bring their purple folder back to class.

• Check out what is going on in counseling!

• Volunteers are welcome on hikes every Wednesday from 1:30 PM to 3:00 PM

• Volunteers are welcome in the classroom to help with math, science/social studies, or reading/writing - see below for times.

• Volunteer Sign Up Link:  https://signup.com/client/invitation2/secure/64833852033/false#/invitation

• 📖Our 3rd/4th Grade Battle of the Books team competed on Monday, Feb. 9th (Layla, Auri, Evaline, & Reagan). They did a great job answering some very specific questions and won a question challenge! 📚

• Our 5th/6th Grade Battle of the Books team competed Feb. 2nd - Congratulations to both teams for reading so many books and 

What are we working on?

Science: Exploring Chemical Reactions and Properties of Matter

This science unit is experiment-heavy. We will use the kitchen for our experiments this unit. If you are free on Tuesdays & Thursdays from 2 to 3 PM, we will be in the kitchen on experiment days, and in the classroom on days we're planning the experiment.

Reading: We are almost finished reading the book, Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin. It is a Chinese folk tale and adventure story involving a young girl and a dragon. We are on chapter 40.

Reading Challenge: Students are challenged to read 19 books this semester (picture books count, and books over 175 pages (4th graders) & 225 pages (5th graders) count as 2 books. We will have time in school to read, but students should also read at home; they can take their book from the classroom library home with them anytime.

Reading Strategy of the Week: Non-Fiction book scavenger hunt.

Writing: Short journal prompts and cursive practice will be a consistent activity after lunch. Students will also begin a short informational piece on a historical figure from the 1600s-1700s.

Grammar or Morphology:  Suffix review and decoding words that are open, closed, VCE syllables, and learning the meaning of prefixes: Non-, Mis-, Dis-, Un-. Last week, we added the suffix -ion, which is the syllable -tion or -sion. There are a lot of spelling rules with this one that caused some confusion, so we will work on this more next week.

Math: Fraction addition and subtraction by drawing, using a number line, using manipulatives, or finding the common denominator.

5th graders should be able to find the common denominator. Having their multiplication facts memorized is very useful for this step.

Social Studies: We are learning about the lead up to the Revolutionary War, and learning about historical figures from the 1600 - 1700s.

Students should choose a historical figure from the 1500s to 1700s who played a part in the creation of America. Students have had 2 days to find and read their books in class (however, many were absent on the first day, and many 5th graders were at yearbook the next week). We will spend more time on this on Wednesday.

Students can read their studies weekly at home at https://online.studiesweekly.com/login.  I can send you their username and password if you need them. The online version gives students the option to have the newspaper read to them, which can be very helpful for processing the information.