Newsletter for September 11, 2015

What We Learned This Week

Word Study

The class took their first word study assessment from the Words Their Way program. They were tested on several words they had practiced in their sorts, but also some new words that shared the same generalizations. Most of the class did really well spelling and identifying the sounds and patterns in this unit's words. I met with those few who struggled with one or more of these elements. Please look for their word study assessment and discuss it with your student. They should be signed and returned at your convenience (no hurry).

We are using sight to recognize our vowel-consonant/vowel-consonant-consonant (VC/VCC) and vowel-consonant-e (VCE) patterns and our ears to listen for the short a and long a sounds, which correspond with the visual patterns. Our anchor words are cat and cake, both of which exemplify the sight and sound patterns we studied. Students also practiced looking for words that share these oral and auditory patterns. There is still some confusion. For example, a student volunteered the word call as a VCC and short a word, but it is an "oddball" because, while it follows the VCC pattern, the vowel makes an "aw" sound instead of a short a sound. This is also a great opportunity to simply focus on words and start to build vocabulary. We had a real range of words, from at to granite.

Students started day one of their new generalization of short and long i and further supported their visual patterns of VC/VCC and VCE. After sorting students alphabetized their words and looked for a short i word in their reading. I always include a few oddballs that test the students' understanding. Today's oddball was give, which follows the VCE pattern, but presents a short i sound. See if your student can give you short and long i words that follow these visual patterns at the dinner table. Listen for oddballs. I used to play "word tennis" with my own kids where we had to give each other words that followed a pattern. It may seem silly, but volleying back and forth words can be a lot of fun.

Reading Workshop

We continued to focus on main idea. Students read longer, multi-paragraph passages and highlighted the topic sentence. They are starting to recognize that the topic sentence is the same thing as the main idea or central theme. Please remind your student to highlight or underline the topic sentence in each of their reading homework paragraphs. Occasionally, there may not be a topic sentence, which provides great learning and gives your student an opportunity to create one.

I also introduced figurative language (sayings and idioms). "The apple doesn't fall far from the tree," came up in our read aloud and launched a great discussion on literal (main idea/central theme) versus figurative language. We will explore some of the most commonly used idioms and their origins.

Writing Workshop

Students rewrote their opinion pieces on why they should be elected to student council. There was a lot of surprise that they had to rewrite their pieces after modeling how they could improve them. I've shared with the class that we will redo much of our writing. The initial draft gives us something to work with, but in 3rd grade we will learn a lot for revising and reworking.

I was really pleased with the students' presentation skills as all of the students running for student council, which was most of the class, read their papers.

Math

I assessed students this week on numeracy (place & value; standard, expanded and written form; comparing numbers; patterns; comparing numbers and fact fluency). I will send these home next week. After this initial assessment, I will create specific standards based assessments.

There is some noticeable anxiety surrounding math fact fluency. Please practice with your student at home! A few minutes nightly will pay off quickly.
Science

We had fun with soda geysers and discussed physical change. If you repeat this at home, I suggest diet soda. It won't bring bees:) Different sodas have different carbonation levels, which you can observe in the varying heights of the soda geysers.

We will begin our science, social studies, health and technology rotation next week!

Our first field trip will take place on Tuesday, September 29th. We will walk to Thompson Park to photo document the Thompson Park Tree Trek. Here is a link to last year's work.
http://thompsonparktreetrek.blogspot.com/

Field Trip permission slips were sent home today. Please email me if you would like to chaperon this great field trip. We will meet in our room at 9am for a brief overview of the morning and will return by 11. Background checks must be up to date prior to helping on the field trip. Thank you in advance for your support. We do know it can be very hard to take time away from work.

Important Dates and Reminders

I will highlight new and changed dates on subsequent posts in red.

September 23 - Early Dismissal Professional Development 1pm
September 29 - Thompson Park Tree Trek Field Trip

October 9 - Fall Family Night
October 16 - End of First Quarter
October 19 - No School Teacher Grading Day
October 25 - Scarecrow Display Contest
October 26 - Early Dismissal Professional Development 1pm
October 29 - UA Trick or Treat Night

November 2 - Early Dismissal at 11:05, NO LUNCH SERVICE

November 2 through 4 - Fall Conferences 
You can sign up for Fall Conferences by clicking on this link:http://www.signupgenius.com/go/10c0a4fa5ac2ea64-fall3

November 3 - No School Election Day/Professional Development
November 9 through 13 - Terra Nova3/InView
November 25 through 27 - Thanksgiving Break

December 1 through 2 - Ohio English Language Arts Assessment
December 21 through January 1 - Winter Break

January 8 - End of Second Quarter
January 11 - No School Teacher Grading Day
January 18  - No School Martin Luther King Day
January 21 - Conferences, Early Dismissal at 11:05, NO LUNCH SERVICE
January 27 - Early Dismissal Professional Development 1pm

February 1 through 16 - Ohio Wildlife Center donation drive
February 15 - No School Presidents' Day
February 16 - Ohio Wildlife Center Visit

March 2 - Early Dismissal Professional Development 1pm
March 18 - End of Third Quarter
March 21 through 25 - No School Spring Break
March 28 - No School Teacher Grading Day

April 6 - Early Dismissal Professional Development 1pm
April 12 and 13 - Ohio English Language Arts Assessment
April 20 and 21 - Ohio Mathematics Assessment

May 27 - Last Day of School for Students

Newsletter for September 4, 2015

What We Learned This Week

Word Study

Students will begin individualized word study groups soon. However, I started everyone this week on the same lesson to teach the process. The cycle will typically be a five day rotation as follows:

Day One: I introduce the word feature sort on Smart Board (e.g., this week's sort was short and long a with VC and VCE patterns); students cut and sort words by pattern; they alphabetize their sorts and finally copy them into their word study journal. I also make sure the students know the meaning of all the words. The first few times we do this will take a lot of time, but I have experienced students begin to be able to do this much faster and more efficiently. I circulate and look for common errors (e.g., this week, many students struggled to hear the long a in whale and the short a in hand. I emphasize the vowel sound by having students "stretch" the word aloud and isolate the vowel sound.) Students keep their words in a baggie in their desk.

Day Two: We physically sort the words and copy them again. We also brainstorm additional words that follow the same pattern. This is a great step towards generalizing.

Day Three: We sort the words again and then look for words in our reading that share the sorting features. We will use this to build vocabulary as well.

Day Four: We sort our words a fourth time and then do one of many possible word study activities: draw and label, use in sentences, blind sorts, speed sorts, vocabulary builders, etc.

Day Five: We sort our words one final time and then recycle them. Students take a word study assessment including many words from the five day cycle's sort as well as new words that share the feature to help us ensure students are generalizing instead of just memorizing.

Reading Workshop

Students continue to identify the main idea in a passage. We will do this with our homework passages as well at school. Students will quickly begin to identify the topic sentence and see how it supports their recognition of the main idea/central theme of a passage/selection. This provides a helpful connection to our writing as we begin our narratives and opinion pieces with strong topic sentences using a variety of strategies.

We also looked for the author's message in picture books. This is challenging, especially for "right answer" oriented students. We will look for evidence to support a variety of answers.

We are well into our read aloud, Wonder, and it is providing many opportunities for great classroom discussion on kindness.

Writing Workshop

Students began their first opinion pieces, writing why they would make a great student council representative. Students must write a reason and then support it with an example, e.g., "I am a good speaker. I once had to give a speech at my aunt's wedding." While not everyone wants to run for student council, everyone is doing this exercise. This writing also provides an opportunity for students to recognize their strengths and areas for growth.

Math Workshop

We had a very busy week in math! Students are:
- Writing numbers in standard (e.g., 563), written (e.g., five hundred sixty-three), and expanded notation (e.g., 500 + 60 + 3)
- Rounding to the nearest ten using empty number lines (e.g., 70   73       80  >  73 is 3 away from 70 and 7 away from 80, so it is closer to 70. Students also recognize that the sum of the two distances is always ten) and recognizing we round down if the one's place is 0, 1, 2, 3 or 4 and we round up if the one's place is 5, 6, 7, 8, or 9.
- Naming numbers by place and value (e.g., the 7 in 472 is called 70, seventy, 7 tens, and 70 ones).
- Identifying the biggest or smallest number possible from a set of numerals (e.g., the biggest number that can be made from 7, 4, 0, and 9 is 9,740. This is typically very easy, but the "next biggest" number of 9,704 is usually very hard. Most students will write 7,940. Try this one with a three or four digit number at home.).
- Recognizing and continuing patterns by looking at which place (ones, tens, hundreds, thousands) is changing.

I have noticed many students (and this is typical of the beginning of third grade) are struggling to read an analog clock. I will review this at school, but you may want to look for opportunities to do this at home. A gift of an analog watch is often very motivating. I point out that the word hour is shorter than the word minute and their lengths correspond with their arms' lengths on a clock. 

Homework

The class practiced an entire night's homework together. I shared explicit strategies and modeled them. Nearly everyone finished their reading in 20 minutes and their math in 15. We also discussed creating the right environment for homework without distractions. I hope this is helpful at home.

Odds and Ends

You will receive a letter about Schoology next week. Schoology is a secure site in which students, teachers and parents can communicate about class experiences. You can see more about it here: http://upperarlington.finalsite.com/page.cfm?p=650

We had a great time celebrating Windermere Sportsmanship Day participating in team building activities. We finished the day with a speaker who focused on the importance of quality relationships. This was a great introduction to our Windermere Way: Responsible, Respectful and Ready to Learn. Here are a few photos from our activities.

See below for important dates.

Important Dates and Reminders

I will highlight new and changed dates on subsequent posts in red.

September 7 - No School Labor Day
September 23 - Early Dismissal Professional Development 1pm

October 9 - Fall Family Night
October 16 - End of First Quarter
October 19 - No School Teacher Grading Day
October 25 - Scarecrow Display Contest
October 26 - Early Dismissal Professional Development 1pm
You can sign up for Fall Conferences by clicking on this link:
http://www.signupgenius.com/go/10c0a4fa5ac2ea64-fall3
October 29 - UA Trick or Treat Night

November 2 - Early Dismissal at 11:05, NO LUNCH SERVICE
November 2 through 4 - Fall Conferences 
November 3 - No School Election Day/Professional Development
November 9 through 13 - Terra Nova3/InView
November 25 through 27 - Thanksgiving Break

December 1 through 2 - Ohio English Language Arts Assessment
December 21 through January 1 - Winter Break

January 8 - End of Second Quarter
January 11 - No School Teacher Grading Day
January 18  - No School Martin Luther King Day
January 21 - Conferences, Early Dismissal at 11:05, NO LUNCH SERVICE
January 27 - Early Dismissal Professional Development 1pm

February 1 through 16 - Ohio Wildlife Center donation drive
February 15 - No School Presidents' Day
February 16 - Ohio Wildlife Center Visit

March 2 - Early Dismissal Professional Development 1pm
March 18 - End of Third Quarter
March 21 through 25 - No School Spring Break
March 28 - No School Teacher Grading Day

April 6 - Early Dismissal Professional Development 1pm
April 12 and 13 - Ohio English Language Arts Assessment
April 20 and 21 - Ohio Mathematics Assessment

May 27 - Last Day of School for Students

Newsletter for August 28, 2015

Thanks so much for coming to Last Night's Parent Information Night. It was great to see so many families. Please don't hesitate to contact me or stop by if you ever have any questions.

Here is a link to the Ohio Department of Education's most recent update on the 3rd Grade Guarantee if you would like to know more.
http://education.ohio.gov/Media/Ed-Connection/Aug-24-2015/New-parent-resources-on-state-tests-and-Third-Grad

Important Dates and Reminders

I will highlight new and changed dates on subsequent posts in red.

September 2 - New Parent Breakfast in the Multipurpose Room at 9am
September 2 - Windermere PTO Night at Graeter's Ice Cream on Bethel Road from 6-8! Bring your family and be ready for some ice cream.  It's an easy and great way to support our wonderful PTO.
September 4 - Windermere Sportsmanship Day, please send gym shoes
September 7 - No School Labor Day
September 23 - Early Dismissal Professional Development 1pm

October 9 - Fall Family Night
October 16 - End of First Quarter
October 19 - No School Teacher Grading Day
October 25 - Scarecrow Display Contest
October 26 - Early Dismissal Professional Development 1pm
You can sign up for Fall Conferences by clicking on this link:
http://www.signupgenius.com/go/10c0a4fa5ac2ea64-fall3
October 29 - UA Trick or Treat Night

November 2 - Early Dismissal at 11:05, NO LUNCH SERVICE
November 2 through 4 - Fall Conferences 
November 3 - No School Election Day/Professional Development
November 25 through 27 - Thanksgiving Break

December 1 through 2 - Ohio English Language Arts Assessment
December 21 through January 1 - Winter Break

January 8 - End of Second Quarter
January 11 - No School Teacher Grading Day
January 18  - No School Martin Luther King Day
January 21 - Conferences, Early Dismissal at 11:05, NO LUNCH SERVICE
January 27 - Early Dismissal Professional Development 1pm

February 1 through 16 - Ohio Wildlife Center donation drive
February 15 - No School Presidents' Day
February 16 - Ohio Wildlife Center Visit

March 2 - Early Dismissal Professional Development 1pm
March 18 - End of Third Quarter
March 21 through 25 - No School Spring Break
March 28 - No School Teacher Grading Day

April 6 - Early Dismissal Professional Development 1pm

May 27 - Last Day of School for Students

Newsletter for August 21, 2015

Wow - what  a great week! This is going to be a great year. We have a terrific bunch of learners and we are starting to build a great community already.

This week was full of community building and establishing routines. We started each morning with special areas, which makes things a bit challenging, but the class adapted quickly and was off and running.

Word Study

I administered two word study assessments, the Qualitative Spelling Inventory (QSI), which is the assessment component of our word study program, Words Their Way, and the Developmental Spelling Assessment (DSA), which comes from the landmark word study text, Word Journeys.

The QSI provides quick direction for grouping and the DSA provides a deeper dive into students' phonological awareness.

Both of these assessments look at word features, such as short vowel sounds (e.g., cat), vowel-consonant-silent e (e.g., tape), blends (two or three letters that you still hear, but they glide together, e.g., frog), and digraphs (two letters that make a single sound, e.g., watch).

I will grade these to identify students' needs. You will note we will not talk about spelling in third grade, but will instead learn "word study," with an emphasis on generalization, instead of memorization.

Reading Workshop

I read Sam and Dave Dig A Hole, by Mac Barnett, to introduce reading for the author's message. The author's message was to persevere, an important trait in learning, which we examined through Noodlers later in the day.

The progressively harder puzzles challenged students' willingness to continue to work at a task and provided a real life example of what it means to persevere. Perseverance will be a consistent theme in our classroom this year.

Students received reading logs which will record their books, genres and how much they read on a daily basis. I will use these reading logs to ensure students are reading appropriately leveled independent texts and a broad range of genres of informational and fiction texts, including poetry. We discussed the importance of reading "just right texts" to develop comprehension beyond the text, fluency, (phrasing and expression) and vocabulary. Many students are tempted to read books that are too far above their reading level and do not benefit them.

Writing Workshop

We will focus on personal narratives initially as they are far easier to develop students' writing with than fiction. Students will work on single paragraphs to develop their craft. We will take this in small bites to develop an understanding of all the elements of a paragraph: topic sentence, supporting details, conclusion, rich language, and convention. Students will also learn the importance of revision, rather than "being done."

Math Workshop

I sent home two math fact fluency assessments on Friday. Students should be getting 25 out of 36 math facts to demonstrate mastery. This is a significant need for most students and we will begin to learn math fact strategies: zero more (3+0), one more (4+1), two more (7+2), doubles (6+6), near doubles (3+4), sums to ten (6+4), make ten (7's, 8's, 9's) (7+5=10+2=12).  Fact fluency is an essential tool for all mathematicians, especially for mental math, which represents the majority of authentic math most adults use on any given day.

We also looked at place and value. We will look at numbers to the one hundred thousands place to take advantage of the repeating places of ones, tens, and hundreds. Students will need to understand that any give place can only have one of ten values (0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, or 9) and that these values can be named two ways. For example, the 5 in 350 is either "fifty" or "five tens."

Important Dates and Reminders

I will highlight new and changed dates on subsequent posts in red.

August 27 - Parent Information Night from 7-8pm in the art room (parents only please). Grade 3 will be presenting together.

September 2 - New Parent Breakfast in the Multipurpose Room at 9am
September 7 - No School Labor Day
September 23 - Early Dismissal Professional Development 1pm

October 9 - Fall Family Night
October 16 - End of First Quarter
October 19 - No School Teacher Grading Day
October 25 - Scarecrow Display Contest

To further build community, our class discussed choosing a theme for our annual Halloween parade. Ideas ranged from Adventure Time and Harry Potter to a classroom full of mummies or zombies. In the end, Star Wars won. I've encouraged all of the students to choose a character from Star Wars to dress as for Halloween. However, students who are not interested in Star Wars, should not feel ANY pressure to do this. It is simply a fun way to build community. There are many fun DIY costumes available on the web as well, which could provide some family fun.

October 26 - Early Dismissal Professional Development 1pm

NOTE: The district changed the fall conference schedule to prevent conflicts with Halloween festivities. If you have already scheduled a conference, please visit the new link below to choose a new date and time. I'm very sorry for any inconvenience. I know it is hard to work around schedules. I have added later evening times to hopefully accommodate more families. 

You can sign up for Fall Conferences by clicking on this link:
http://www.signupgenius.com/go/10c0a4fa5ac2ea64-fall3

November 2 - Early Dismissal at 11:05, NO LUNCH SERVICE
November 2 through 4 - Fall Conferences 

November 3 - No School Election Day/Professional Development
November 25 through 27 - Thanksgiving Break

December 1 through 2 - Ohio English Language Arts Assessment
December 21 through January 1 - Winter Break

January 8 - End of Second Quarter
January 11 - No School Teacher Grading Day
January 18  - No School Martin Luther King Day
January 21 - Conferences, Early Dismissal at 11:05, NO LUNCH SERVICE
January 27 - Early Dismissal Professional Development 1pm

February 1 through 16 - Ohio Wildlife Center donation drive
February 15 - No School Presidents' Day
February 16 - Ohio Wildlife Center Visit

March 2 - Early Dismissal Professional Development 1pm
March 18 - End of Third Quarter
March 21 through 25 - No School Spring Break
March 28 - No School Teacher Grading Day

April 6 - Early Dismissal Professional Development 1pm

May 27 - Last Day of School for Students

Windermere Hawks

Welcome to Room 120 for the 2014-2015 school year. I'm Mr. Hudson, your home-room teacher. I'm so excited to work with you this year. We have many fun and challenging learning experiences already planned.

Please take time to visit the many links at the right. There are many helpful resources I have found over the years. This is also an easy place to find the Windermere PTO Website. Check it often for many student extracurricular activities!

Please bring an independent chapter book you would like to start reading on the first day of school.

Special Area Schedule

Our special area schedule follows an ABCDE rotation, rather than days of the week. A copy of this schedule will be available during Meet Your Teacher Night.

A Days - Art
B Days - Music and Library
C Days - PE
D Days - Music
E Days - PE

Your student will need athletic shoes on all gym days and should plan to leave an art smock in their locker.

I will highlight new and changed dates on subsequent posts in red.

Important Dates and Reminders

August 18 - Back To School/Ice Cream Social 4-5pm Room 120
August 19 - First Day of School:) Breakfast on the Green 7:45am provided by PTO
August 27 - Parent Information Night from 7-8pm in the art room (parents only please). Grade 3 will be presenting together.

September 2 - New Parent Breakfast in the Multipurpose Room at 9am
September 7 - No School Labor Day
September 23 - Early Dismissal Professional Development 1pm

October 9 - Fall Family Night
October 16 - End of First Quarter
October 19 - No School Teacher Grading Day
October 25 - Scarecrow Display Contest
October 26 through 29 - Conferences
October 29 - Conferences, Early Dismissal at 11:05, NO LUNCH SERVICE
You can sign up for Fall Conferences by clicking on this link: www.SignUpGenius.com/go/10C0A4FA5AC2EA64-fall2

November 3 - No School Election Day/Professional Development
November 25 through 27 - Thanksgiving Break

December 21 through January 1 - Winter Break

January 8 - End of Second Quarter
January 11 - No School Teacher Grading Day
January 18  - No School Martin Luther King Day
January 21 - Conferences, Early Dismissal at 11:05, NO LUNCH SERVICE
January 27 - Early Dismissal Professional Development 1pm

February 1 through 16 - Ohio Wildlife Center donation drive
February 15 - No School Presidents' Day
February 16 - Ohio Wildlife Center Visit

March 2 - Early Dismissal Professional Development 1pm
March 18 - End of Third Quarter
March 21 through 25 - No School Spring Break
March 28 - No School Teacher Grading Day

April 6 - Early Dismissal Professional Development 1pm

May 27 - Last Day of School for Students

What We Learned This Week

Technology
Students were given district Google docs account this week. As a Google district (meaning we use Google products for staff and students), students must use Google docs to upload, save and share work. Fourth grade will be using this platform at the start of next year for sharing work with teachers and peers for immediate feedback.

There is NO texting and use of Google docs is expected to follow the student technology use agreement signed by every student at the beginning of the year. Google docs will also obviously not be used for casual communication between students and should be seen as no different than paper based work shared in the classroom for co-authoring and revision. The only people who will see a student's work are those they intentionally share them with. Students will not have access to outside contacts from school.

The intent of adopting the Google docs platform for sharing is to prepare our students for the technology they will use in the future for careers and to encourage efficient and productive collaboration. If you have any further questions, please don't hesitate to ask.

Important Dates & Reminders

Important 4th Quarter Dates & Reminders

May 18, 2015 - All library materials are due. 
May 18, 2015 - 3rd Grade Team attending full day professional development
May 22, 2015 - Volunteer luncheon
May 25, 2015 - No School Memorial Day
May 28, 2015 - 3rd Grade Team attending full day professional development

May 28, 2015 - Visiting author, Kristen Otte, visits (Please see previous email and mail.)

June 1, 2015 - Field Day (Please see Mr. Moore's email.)
June 3, 2015 - End of fourth quarter/Last day for students, Classroom parties 12:05 till 1:05pm

June 9, 2015 - Progress Reports sent home 

Newsletter for May 8, 2015

Happy Mother's Day.

Thank you for all you do!

What We Learned This Week

Word Study
We are continuing our study of r-controlled or r-influenced patterns. We reviewed our initial patterns of ar, ir, or, and ur. R-influenced vowels are tricky as many of these words have to be memorized due to them sharing sounds. For example, ir and ur have the same sound which can lead to misspellings of bird (burd) and burn (birn). We introduced ar patterns and related features this week by studying ar, are, air, and patterns that share these sounds, e.g., where. Students did an open sort first where they determine how they will sort the words. Students might sort by alphabetical order or shared beginning consonants. These inventive sorts show a lot about how a student views decoding and encoding and they can be directed to look for initial blends and vowels instead, which are often much more helpful features. We follow the open sort with a  closed sort, where the features are dictated by the teacher. Closed sorts still require the students to use both sight (spelling features and patterns) and sound to sort and may include "oddballs," words that share a sound but not a spelling pattern or share a spelling pattern, but do not sound alike. Oddballs we encountered included bear, heart, pear, wear, and where. R-influenced words include a number of homophones (e.g., pear and pair, bear and bare) which require direct instruction and memorization as well.


Reading Workshop
Students are continuing to grow through individual conferences. I'm seeing great growth in these conferences as I can focus on truly individualized reading and word study goals for each student. Conferences with fiction books are focusing on figurative topics of author's message and inference. Book choice is still a challenge for some students. As we head into summer reading, it is important to support your student with appropriate or just-right books. Students should read books they can read fluently, with a normal speaking voice pace, an accuracy rate of approximately 98%, and expression, attending to punctuation and context. You can challenge your student with harder reading material of short passages if you are explicitly working with them on an identified skill, but they should read just-right books when reading independently. 

Writing Workshop
Students are building productivity and stamina through their peer letter writing. Students are encouraged to use "wonderful words," great vocabulary and to support them with specific examples or memories of when their classmates were "kind" or "enthusiastic." Each letter gets stronger. This increased writing will support students this week as they take the District Writing Assessment.

Students continue to research animals, working towards a final product which will share what they have learned. Students will get to choose how they do this (e.g., slide show, iMovie, poster board, diorama, etc.).

Math
We continued our study of the metric system with an emphasis on personal references. Students know there are 100 centimeters in a meter and have personal references for a centimeter (width of a jumbo paperclip) and a meter (width of a door). Students also used meter sticks to explore the school looking for personal references. We discussed how a good personal reference is something that will be consistent over time. For example, our height will change and the size of posters and flags will be different, but a piece of printer paper is always 8.5" x 11", a good reference for 1 foot. Personal references are essential for catching errors in measurement computations. Centimeter also contains "cent" which means 100 and can be remembered by thinking of 100 years in a century or 100 cents in one dollar. We ended the week by introducing the fact that there are 1,000 meters in a kilometer.

Science
We continued life science through our research and studying the commonalities of life cycles: birth, growth, reproduction, and death.

Important Dates & Reminders

Important 4th Quarter Dates & Reminders

Happy May!

May 12th through May 14, 2015 - Students will eat in the classroom due to the 5th Grade Musical. Please do not send peanuts or tree nuts in packed lunches!

May 18, 2015 - All library materials are due.
If you have lost an item, email our media clerk, Edie Hartmus to confirm payment or replacement at enhartmus@uaschools.org. You can look for a used copy online or at a book store. It's usually cheaper for you and it guarantees the book will be back on the shelf for next year.  If you lost the book and it was hardback, please purchase the hardcopy edition. Alternatively, send cash or a check to Windermere for the replacement cost.  Mrs. Hartmus will let you know what that is. Outstanding items that have not been replaced will block your child's record at the beginning of the next school year. 

May 25, 2015 - No School Memorial Day

June 1, 2015 - Field Day
June 3, 2015 - End of fourth quarter/Last day for students, Classroom parties 12:05 till 1:05pm

June 9, 2015 - Progress Reports sent home