October 24th ~ Weekly re-cap and a taste of what's to come..

Life skills- This week began with lessons about marijuana myths and realities. Students were taught information and common misconceptions about marijuana. We discussed the immediate and long-term effects of marijuana on the body and the legal status of marijuana. Students reflected on and listed reasons why they will choose not to smoke marijuana.

For the remainder of the week, we focused on advertising. We discussed the purpose of advertising and common advertising techniques. Students analyzed cigarette and alcohol advertisements and discussed alternative ways of responding to cigarette and alcohol ads. 

This Monday, students will present ads in groups that demonstrate common techniques used by advertisers to target specific groups.  This will lead us to discuss violence in the media and our choices in analyzing distorted images.  Then, we will move on to our lessons about coping with anxiety and anger and focusing on social skills.  

5th grade math: Students have reviewed angle measurement and have compared and contrasted different properties of polygons. This Monday, we will go over their homework from study link 3-9 and continue investigating the properties of different polygons. They will classify, compare and discuss their findings.  By Tuesday we will have finished the unit and I will assign a unit review on Wednesday.  This review is the same format as the test. The unit test will be given this Friday, October 29th in the morning. 

I have been very impressed with the focus and inquisitive discussions we have had during this geometry unit. Students have found many real world connections and have done an excellent job of communicating their understanding and confusion so that we can focus in on areas to review for each individual student!

Language Arts - Students continue to add to their literacy bins and have included new books about people of interest. They will compose their own biographies on their selected individual and we will review proofreading techniques.  We will also focus more on writing techniques in biographies such as anecdotes, chronological events, summarizing, and voice. 

Students spent the last week with several homework assignments that mirror the lessons we have had in class with writing.  These include riddle poems (as we discussed J.R.R. Tolkien's famous riddle poetry!), personal responses that connect to life events and spelling ownership.   We finished our week of reading about James Forten, a character in the texts we read about the Revolutionary War.  Students focused on questioning strategies as they discussed in a "fishbowl" setting.  This "fishbowl" discussion technique, where 4 students converse in the middle and students in the outskirts 'tap in' and 'tap out' was extremely successful this past week.  I was so impressed with students' abilities to be risk-takers and share their opinions, ideas and questions with their peers. This is an extremely wonderful way to demonstrate their learning to their peers and give others a new perspective to view texts.

Lit circles will continue as well as Spanish lessons on vocabulary and conversational phrases.

This week, you can expect to see your child bring home work on their biographies, reading books, and inquiry projects.  Inquiry projects are due November 2nd. The week of the 2nd, students will present their learning in the form of PowerPoint presentations, computer animation video clips, posters, demonstrations, graphs, charts and models.  Students have been working hard on these inquiries and I see meaningful connections to literacy and a wide array of disciplines in each project.

Updates from Mrs. Whittington:

Social Studies: We continue to look at power and authority, studying the benefits and consequences of allowing an authority to take power. We're closing the week with a look at how we select people to hold positions of authority in life and our governments.

6th grade: Math: We're finishing up this unit and I expect we'll be ready for the unit test on Tuesday or Wednesday. I will also be giving assessments of basic math facts. We've done addition already and will go through subtraction, multiplication and division in the next two weeks.

Halloween: Information from Mrs. Kehoe:
Downstairs classrooms will start the parade at around 1:30 with each new class joining in at the end of the line. Those 3 classes will head upstairs and walk down the dinosaur hallway. This hallway should be lined with Lisa's, Rachel's and Nora's classes. Again, each class should join in at the end of the line. Now those 6 classes will continue down the 2nd grade wing and those classes should be in the hallway and should join in as the line goes by! As Sara gets to the gym door, she will enter and parade around the gym for parents and out the door where we enter for lunch. The line should turn right down the intermediate and upper hallway and the same procedure should be followed. All kids in the hallway watching and should join in at the end of the line. Sara should go out the back door by Lori's room and around to the door by the media center and then through the media center. When the parade finishes in the media center you can return to your classrooms. Parents in grades K-2 can view the parade from the gym. Parents in grades 3-6 can view from the back blacktop or the media center. They may also join you in the hallways! If they have multiple children they may think the blacktop or media center is best because everyone will walk by there! Hopefully this cuts down on the congestion and keeps things moving. Please try to keep the line moving!! Pictures can happen in your rooms. Parties will happen after that!