Long Weekend!

I hope everyone enjoyed their long weekend. I know for many of us, it started off on a high note. With the open house, the Valentine’s Day party, and the class party after school on Friday, last week was definitely an interesting one. Thank you so much for those of you who came to the open house. It was good to look back at all of the things we have done this year. The PowerPoints were especially impressive. I would also like to thank all of those involved in the Valentine’s Day party. I know it takes a lot of work to organize such a massive event, and I really appreciate those who took the time out of their days to make it possible. The pizza and movie party was fun too! We watched UP!, and I enjoyed it so much I convinced my wife to buy it. For those who couldn’t make it to the party, I will be sure to make it up to you. We are planning on coming in during lunch and recess to watch a movie and I will be providing popcorn! I know it’s not the same, but hopefully this will be worth all the work you put into earning it.

Speaking of work, we did a lot of it last week. In reading, we finished up the Harcourt story, Evelyn Cisneros: Prima Ballerina. I know this probably wasn’t the most appealing story for most of the boys, but they did a good job of gutting it out and staying focused on the bigger picture. Besides just reading the story, we finished up our unit on Extended Responses. Although we are done with the unit, there will still be a few more opportunities to practice before ISAT’s come around. I am confident that the students are where they need to be in terms of the extended responses. Being that we have two short weeks in a row coming up, we will spend them both reading Off and Running in the Harcourt Series.

In writing, we started getting back into the ABC & D of prompt writing. This is also an ISAT prep writing unit. We started it a few weeks back, then went away from it for awhile. Now we are back to it, and the students will be doing a lot of writing in the next few weeks. The unit is meant to give students a plan of action when given a prompt to write about. It is very systematic and should help make the enormous process much more manageable. Prompt writing is not an easy task, but with a few weeks of practice, I think we will get it done.

We are wrapping up our unit on the American Revolution in social studies. Last week, we finished up the last of the presentations on various battles and turning points of the war. Then we started watching this very interesting series of movies that delve even deeper into major parts of the American Revolution. If you have the chance, I would highly recommend checking it out on your own time. You can go to unitedsteaming.com and search “American Revolution Battles.” It is the Discovery Education series called “The Revolutionary War” and there are three different videos to watch. We should finish up watching those by this week. After that, each student will be responsible for completing 3 activities on our American Revolution Tic Tac Toe Board. There are 9 activities to pick from, and this will give the students an opportunity to choose a way to show me all they have learned about the American Revolution. I can’t wait to see what they come up with.

Celebrations!!!
-100% on Unit 20 Spelling
Aimen, Hannah F., Arushi, & Max
-100% on Satchmo's Blues
Megan, Dominic, Gabby, Max, Matthew R., Kevin, & Avarie
-Victoria Passed Otter Creek 12's.