One Down, Three to Go!

We have one quarter down and three more to go. I can’t believe we are already over one quarter of the way done with the year. I guess time flies when you’re having fun (or just staying busy). We have had a great 1st quarter and I have some high expectations for the following three.

As for the last few weeks, we have been busy as always. (I have to apologize for not updating the blog last week. Let’s just call it “technical difficulties”). Anyway, we accomplished a lot this week. We finished up all the research presentations on the 13 colonies. They went awesome! Not only did the students learn a lot, but I learned a lot of new interesting facts as well. We will be taking a break from Social Studies for the next few weeks and focusing on Science. Next week, we are going to be starting our “Small Life” unit. There are a lot of really cool activities that go along with all the learning we will be doing. Needless to say, I am very excited to get this unit started.

As for Reading, we have been moving along as planned. We finished up reading Island of the Blue Dolphins Friday and we will be starting Everglades on Monday. One thing I would like to mention about our Harcourt series (which I put in last week’s "technical difficulties”) is that it is an anthology of a number of stories put together. However, the stories are only excerpts of the original stories. This makes it very difficult for students to get a real feel for the quality of these stories. The reason I bring this up is because all the excerpts are from some really good stories. If you have the chance, I would highly suggest students get their hands on the full versions. They wouldn’t be in the anthology if they weren’t topnotch.

We are also well on our way into the next unit of Writing. We started our Memoir unit this week. We spent all this week immersing in different published memoir pieces. This has allowed us to create a list of defining characteristics of a good memoir. Next week, we will start the writing process to create memoirs of our own. However, as I have already mentioned to a number of students, we really need to focus on the revising and editing stages of the writing process. We are stressing “elaboration” in this piece. This means I want to see DETAILS, DETAILS, DETAILS! We will be spending a lot of extra time revising and editing in order to makes sure this happens. Make sure you are starting to think about what you want to write about. I am excited to see what kind of memoirs turn up.

I hope everyone has a fun, safe, and SCARY weekend. I would like to thank all the parents who made the Fall Party such a success. It was really nice to be able to have something like that and not have to worry about it on my end. I know it took a lot of work on the parents’ part. I can’t tell you how appreciative I am to have such supportive parents. Thanks again!

By the way, make sure everyone brings the signed envelopes from the report cards back on Monday. Also, parent teacher conferences are coming up. I look forward to meeting with all the parents and students. I know students may not be used to being at the conferences, but I would really like all the students to come if they can. It will be a good chance for students to take ownership over their progress in the 1st quarter.

CELEBRATIONS!!!
-100% on Unit 9 Spelling Test
Cooper, Hannah F., Hannah C., & Victoria
-100% on Unit 10 Spelling Test
Aimen, Kara, Victoria, Hannah C., Hannah F., Landon, Matthew R., Cooper, Breanna & Ally
-Austin, Aimen, & Hannah C., are done with Otter Creek Multiplication!
-Jack, Arushi, Matthew R., & Max are done with Otter Creek Division!
-Lanie had a wrap around goal in her last hockey game!
-Jack, Austin, & Cooper are in the playoffs for football!
-Megan, Lanie, & Max are in the championships for intramural soccer!