Last Week of January

     Star Lab was a huge hit! The students worked hard and learned a lot about the constellations and the effect our Earth's rotation has on the seasons. It warms my heart when so many students come into school and tell me about the constellations they spotted in the night sky.
    The Science Fair is coming; I encourage you all to participate. If I can be of any help please don't hesitate to contact me. Our current events for February are optional. Students should sign-up for a date of their choice by this Thursday. I will send home a finalized copy of the schedule by the end of the week.
    With Valentine's Day right around the corner I will send home a letter detailing our class party and a class list to address Valentine's Day cards. Finally, we will have our class compliment party on Friday. Students are allowed to wear pajamas to school. I will take care of the treats!

Reading Workshop
      We will continue to work on our Mystery unit. We are reading a mystery together as a whole class. It is from the Calendar Club Mystery series. The students are so excited and very motivated.

Writing Workshop
     Last week we made booklets and began to develop our chapters. We are using what we know about the structure of informational texts and our topics to make smart decisions about the way we are organizing our chapters. This will be a very large writing project that will consist of multiple chapters, paragraphs, and pages. We will work on it bit by bit while looking at model texts to help inspire and motivate us.

Math
    This week we will continue to work on division. We are applying what we know about the concept of division and relating it to multiplication. We will also use our multiplication facts to help us solve division problems without the use of counters to help us. Continue to practice those facts at home, they help us solve our division problems with minimal frustration. For the third week in a row everyone scored a 100% on their fact quiz (this has never happened to me before!!!). This week everyone will take x9. Thank you all so much for the work you are doing at home. We are also working on Area this week.

Science
     We will begin a new unit in Science this week. We will be learning about the Solar System. This is a natural progression from our Star Lab work over the last three weeks. We will be learning about the planets, the sun, asteroids, meteors, etc. This is a research unit. The students will use computers and print resources to research aspects of each planet. They will also be responsible for completing a project on a planet of their choice at the end of the unit. Most of this work will be done in school!

   I am looking forward to another wonderful week of school. I have noticed a real change in your children over the last few weeks. They are growing, learning, and developing some wonderful work habits. Sitting in an assembly last week, another teacher in the building commented on what a change they have seen in your children and she commented on how much more mature they seem. BRAVO!!