September 23rd ~ 27th

Thursday is an early-out day to allow for instruction-related training for teachers. Lunch is not served on early-out days and the kids will be dismissed at 12:00 noon.

Mark your Calendars ~ October 1st Field Trip to the Alberta Bair Theater. This is usually just a 6th grade treat, but I asked Mr. Croff and he was able to have our entire class included. You will find a permission slip in the Wednesday Watch this week and I would like to have it returned no later than next Monday, the 30th. The show this year is Doktor Kaboom, which focuses on the fun and intrigue that science and math can generate.

NWEA Dates ~ I have changed one of our NWEA dates because it conflicted with the Alberta Bair show. We will now test as follows:
Monday September 30th ~ Math
Wednesday October 2nd ~ Language
Friday October 4th ~ Reading

Spelling ~ 
5th: Unit 3 - long i and long e
6th: Unit 3 - vowel sounds
We will take a pretest on Monday, work with our words and selected vocabulary throughout the week, and take a final test on Friday.
Language ~ Both grades will work with the Latin word roots ~brev, ~cede, ~ceed, & ~cess. Each week, the kids learn the meanings of these word roots and then use their expertise to "create" a new word using at least one prefix, one suffix, and one word root.
5th: Action Verbs and Past Tense Verbs
6th: Reflexive Pronouns and Demonstrative Pronouns
Reading ~ Both grades will finish reading Bridge to Terabithia this week. They will work on a final project for the book next week. For each reading selection, the students must make predictions, look for connections to self, text, or world as they read, maintain an awareness of unknown words or concepts as they read, and then write a short summary of each chapter.
Writing ~ The kids will begin doing a 15-20 minute rotation each day dedicated to using writing prompts for short pieces - or self-selected topics they choose to take to publication after revising and editing.
Math ~ 
5th: We will be working with the Order of Operations this week. This concept is pivotal for later concepts and we will complete several real-world activities to reinforce this concept.
6th: Our focus will be rules of divisibility, prime & composite numbers, factors & prime factorization, and greatest common factors.
6th Social Studies ~ We are continuing our study of Hominids.
6th Science ~ We are continuing our work with density and will create a layered density tower on Tuesday. It is messy, but fun! We will learn about the various states of matter.

Have a fantastic week - and thank you again for sharing your child with me!