Last week update

A big THANK YOU to everyone that has sent in supplies!  Our class really appreciates it, very much.  Let's see last week...in writing we didn't get to our elapsed time fairy tale writing, so that will be this week.  We finished up the adaptation papers and discussed subject verb agreement.  We had a great time laughing at how sentences sound when the subject and verb disagree.  "You is soooo mean!" was our favorite.  Well, at least it was my favorite.  We have started a warm up prompt as soon as they come in the class.  It is a silly prompt and we take about 10 minutes to write a silly story.  We have been writing so many long, big assignments that we need to also remember it is important to be able to write efficiently and quickly.

In Math we continued working on time and elapsed time, nothing big to report there, the students struggle with this because it is so abstract.  Any chance you have to discuss time with your student is great.  Even using words like "quarter till or after, half past, noon, midnight, am and pm" when telling them when dinner is or when to stop playing video games!

Market day is approaching!  I meant to send home the parent letter on Friday, but ran out of time.  It should go home Monday!  We continued working on Eleanor Roosevelt last week and I have to be honest, the information is a little.......dry.  I know she did wonderful things and all, but the book is a little difficult for the students to be enthralled by.  When I am reading I am throwing out all kinds of different accents to liven it up! 

Science, we finished up adaptations and took a test on Friday.  I will not joke, the test was higher order thinking, just like the habitat test was higher order thinking.  I do not want my students to memorize information to spit it back for a test, then forget it.  I want them to synthesize, analyze, and evaluate the information.  Study guides are great, but 99% of what they need to know is the discussion we have in class and the reading they did.  They need to pay attention and participate in class to do well.

Well, that was it for last week!  Picture forms will also go home on Monday.  If I have to leave you with anything to reinforce at home it would be to tell your students to SLOW DOWN!  Take pride in your work, this is not a contest to see who finishes first.  I have so many that are in a rush to finish they skip questions or pages and don't go back over the work. 

Thanks, I have an AWESOME class (and parents).
Mrs. Borg