Week of 10/13/08

This will be a short week. I am sure your child is ready for Fall Break! This week we will begin our geology unit! Our geology unit covers language arts skills as well as science skills. It is a very fun unit! Your children may bring special rocks from home to display in our rock museum. They will all get their rocks back. We will start with a study of the earth and its layers. Math this week includes telling time and calendars. We will study elapsed time as well. You can help your child at home by giving them elapsed time questions such as: We will leave for football practice in 1 hour and 15 minutes. It is now 3:05. What time will we leave? Elapsed time is a hard concept for many children, especially those that struggle telling time on a "non-digital" clock. Practice "plain old" telling time too. In social studies, we will be finishing up our Oklahoma Symbols books and taking a quiz on the symbols. We will also take a look at the Dust Bowl.

Soon my children will be hosting a mock election for grades 3 through 6! We will be learning about government and the election process over the next few weeks. Our mock election will be held on October 28th, the Tuesday before the real election. Talk to your child about the presidential candidates and the importance of voting.

Next week, the children need to have their pumpkins to school by October 23rd. That will be our Pumpkin Day. Remember that your child may bring a pumpkin the size of an apple or as big as he/she can carry. We will be doing pumpkin related work in reading, math, science, and art.

Tomorrow, Monday, I will be sending home the conference note. Please send it back on Tuesday. The children seem very excited about these conferences! Boy, do we have a few things planned for you! They are anxious to be the leader, while you sit back and be the listener. Hopefully, you have taken a moment to read some of the research on student-led conferences. If you have not, the link is at the right.

We are doing well on box tops! We also have some donated pet items! Yeah! The kids and I say "Thank you". Some of you have already sent in items for upcoming projects. Thank you. I have started a pile behind our ship! I will let you know when things are due as they come if you would rather wait to send things.

There will be no reading homework or spelling this week.

Have a great week!