Weekly News - Update

It's hard to believe Winter Break is just around the corner. Please remind your children it is important to stay focused and on task throughout the day so that they may continue to achieve the high standards placed upon them every day. We are constantly learning new skills and concepts and students need to be present and focused in order to achieve.

• This week in Science students began a unit on Natural Disasters including Floods, Earthquakes, Volcanoes, Hurricanes and Tsunamis. Both fifth grades watched a Discovery Education video about the above storms. Next week students will be reading short chapter books about natural disasters and work with a partner to complete a chart that will be presented to the class. Information from the books will be presented using strategies students learned during Literacy Workshop (For example: summarizing, retell, outlining.).
• This week in reading we are continuing with Where the Red Fern Grows. Students continue to enjoy this heartwarming story about a boy and his dogs. I hope they continue to retell the story to you at home.
• This week in math students are taking the mid module math assessment. Skills included in this assessment are: multiplication of larger numbers with or without decimals, estimating and rounding numbers and word problems. Please continue to practice multiplication facts with your children. Our next concept will be finding equivalent measures including: inches, feet, yards, cups, quarts, liters gallons, etc. After several lessons on measurement we will move on to division of larger numbers with and without decimals.
• A reminder that Young Author's books are due Monday, February 10th. If your child typed their story on their home computer you can send it to me at school and I will print it out. Thank you for seeing that this project has been completed on time.

As always thank you for your support from the homefront. Have a wonderful and restful weekend. Stay warm and enjoy the Olympics.