Sunday, October 26, 2008

What's Up This Week

The last week of October will be a busy one. As you can see from the Exhibitions countdown clock, time is short. Before you know it, Exhibitions will be here. Checklists will go home this week and next week you'll sign up for an Exhibition time. It's amazing how fast time flies, isn't it?
In math this week, we'll continue working on multiplication facts, but we'll add in some work with measurement, some story problems, and some work with what we call open sentences, which is really a pre-algebra concept. Here's an example of a very simple open sentence: ___ + 3 = 8 If you can fill in the blank, then you can do an open sentence!

We're on pace to have a Unit 3 test next Wednesday, the 5th of November. We'll have another quiz on Friday, too.

Writing Workshop will be busy this week, too. Students should have a final draft of their personal narratives by Friday. Hopefully, the kids will finish and will be able to type and publish their stories.

In science, we'll continue our exploration of matter. They have been enjoying the science activities so far. It's been fun.

We won't do costumes Friday, but we will have our first Birthday Club party! Thanks to those parents who sent in their ONE-TIME $4 fee. Friday is also a free-dress for $1 day.

Also this week, we'll really get into our "UPREP Goes Green Project." For those of you who weren't aware, I am part of a group of 5 teachers that received a grant of technology products from Hewlett-Packard. We got the grant for designing a project where the students start up a recycling program at the school. This week, students will complete the first phase, which involves creating a presentation on the computer. Next week, they'll present these to other classes in the school so that other students are educated and then the recycling program will begin. It's an awesome reward for our school--only 101 schools earned this honor. I'll update you more as we get more done with this.

Until then, if you have any questions or concerns, be sure to send an email or leave a comment!

1 comment:

grannyAME said...

Thanks for all your hard work. It will pay off soon and late. I went over Angela's math word problems. At first she acted like she did not understand how to solve the problems. I refused to give her the solutions, but just re-read, restated the problems and she solved them on her own correctly. Historically, these type of problems are difficult for my people. I wish I knew of some free or easily accessible activities that could help teach my grandchildren problem solving skills. They spend most of their time being entertained and little to no time being challenged to exercise or develope critical thinking skills. Hopefully, one day soon we will be able to get a computer in the home so that we can acquire some kind of software to help teach them in an electronic way that they will perceive as "fun", and therefore readily absorbed. Keep up the good work ... it's appreciated!