Goodbye February....I hardly knew you!

Hello Friends! It has been awhile since I last posted...sorry about that! I feel like the time is flying by so fast.
  Unfortunately, I will be out tomorrow because the little dude came down with a nasty stomach bug. My husband stayed at home today so tomorrow is my turn. I'll be working on our Habitats Unit and taking care of Cole. NEVER FEAR, I left very detailed assignments for Ms. Bell and of course Wu Laoshi knows what to do with the kids. They may even work harder tomorrow w/o me there since they have learned how to easy it is to side track me. They are masters of it.

                                                                      Curriculum

Here is the plan for the next 4-5 weeks. I am going to teach SS & Science for an extended block in the mornings, continue our RLA review using WONDER and teach an extended Math block in the afternoon from now until we take the CRCT.

 Writing: We will be finishing up our persuasive speeches and I will videotape them to send to each of you. I hope to get them done by the end of next week. The kids have worked hard to write them and edit them in alignment with the rubric. This concludes the writing portion of our standards at this time. We have written friendly letters, narratives, information booklets, speeches, and reading responses. After the testing window, we will re-visit each genre and work to improve our current works or generate new pieces. This is my favorite part! The kids will really see how far they have come in a year!

Reading & LA: We have just completed our review of all of the LA skills and standards with regards to grammar and conventions of writing. We are going to continue to read WONDER by RJ Palacio. Your child will have a WONDER assignment as a RRJ assignment each week until we complete the book. If your child 'loses, forgets, shrugs' or otherwise when asked about his/her WONDER assignment he/she can always write about the book in the RRJ until I am able to replace their assignment pages.
For example: Make a connection to a character or part of the story.
*side note...It is an amazing story if you haven't read it, I highly recommend it! *

MATH:  We are finishing up our Geometry Unit and moving on to Data & Measurement next week. The kids did great with Geometry. Ask them questions like:

What is a polygon? A quadrilateral? What is the difference b/t a square and a rhombus? A rectangle and a parallelogram?   What shape has only one set of parallel lines? Tell me what you know about angles?

Social Studies:  We will begin exploring Georgia Habitats. I will be assigning a project around this unit and I will send an email about it tomorrow. This will include Georgia's Piedmont region, mountains, swamps and wetlands as well as the Atlantic Ocean.

Science: Magnets! Really this time we are going to get magnets done! We missed that week due to snow so I am going to fit in over the next month. If you have any magnets, (particularly bar magnets but any will do) please send them in for use in the classroom. I am also going to try and order a magnet kit this weekend! Thanks to Mrs. Wilkes for bringing in classroom materials on magnets, I am SOO using them!

Other News

*The field trip was a success! The kids enjoyed it and so did I! 

* MAP testing results are in my hands! I am going to try and figure how to print out your child's individual report and send home on Friday with the Progress Reports! I should have time to do this tomorrow.
   -Overall, we are a super smart group! I am quite pleased and you will be too!
Until tomorrow.......