Weekly News - Update

October 1st begins three weeks of NECAP Testing for fifth graders. The first week Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday morning students will take the Reading portion of NECAP's. The second week Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday student's will take the Math portion. The third week is Writing and it is only given on Tuesday and Wednesday. I am asking that you make sure your children get plenty of rest and eat a healthy, solid breakfast each morning. It is important that they are ready to taking these challenging assessments. Thank you in advance for your cooperation and support.

• Literacy - This week in Reading we continued practicing Cause and Effect through non fiction articles as wekk as an assignment on the smartboad. Students were shown a picture with eacher the cause or effect listed. In their notesbooks they wrote the sentence and added either a cause or an effect to complete the sentence. Ask them to tell you about the pictures. They did a very nice job with this activitiy. Next week we will finish up with Problem/Solution and Description. In Writer's Workshop student were asked to write 10 "seeds" or story ideas. They continued writing by choosing a seed and developing an introduction paragraph. Introductions were shared in a group community setting. After sharing students continued working on their stories.
• Math - Math continues to be very challenging for most students. We are all doing the best we can with this new program. Please remind you children this is a new program and the most important thing they can do right now is focus and pay close attention during math time.  Practice and revisiting the lessons will help them gain a better understanding of the concepts. One of the toughest parts right now is all the new language. We will all hang in there together.
• Social Studies - This week students read about the early arrival theory. They were introduce to the first hunters and the early farmers. They also learned about the different types of maps. Ask them to tell you the difference between a political and physical map.
• Several students also had eye exams at school this week and last week they were given a hearing test.
•  Reminder - Please make sure your child is working on their map project. They need to complete a map, flag and one page report.

Have a restful weekend and do something fun. Remember NECAP's begin next week.