Week of 2/17

Hi Families! Hope your kiddos enjoy a great day off tomorrow! I will be at teacher's meetings in the morning and in the classroom organizing in the afternoon. I think I must be in nesting mode! (We will hopefully get our referral for our baby from Africa in May or June, don't worry though, we won't travel until summer or fall.) I have been crazily trying to clean, throw out stuff, and organize, both at school and home. While I am a major planner and organizer of days, projects, and events, I am not a natural organizer of stuff! I'm trying to do better! :)

This will be an exciting week at school while we culminate our space unit!

Science: On Tuesday, the children will have a small assignment in relation to a planet of their choosing. On Wednesday through Friday, they will be in groups of 3 or 4 designing a space habitat out of heavy duty plastic and duct tape! It should be quite interesting! This is why we need fans. I've been thinking that maybe a round fan would work too, not the tall ones, but the short ones that oscillate. We will not need it to oscillate, but we could turn that feature off. Please share if you have one. Remember that the Great Egg Launch is scheduled for Friday. Mr. Starks is volunteering to bring his bucket truck to school that day to do the Egg Launch! Thanks Mr. Starks! You are awesome!! We will do the launch sometime around 12:30 or 1:00 that day. I will let you know when I know for sure, in case you want to come! Please remember this project is worth 200 points. I will grade according to creativity and design used, in other words don't just put it in a box and call it good! Try also to make it space theme related!

Reading: Your kids are doing super with literature circles! They are reading up a storm. I love meeting with the groups and talking about their books with them. When they get done with the book they have to list the main characters, setting, and write a summary. They then will do a project comparing themselves with the main character. When they are done with that, they get to start a new book.

Math: Equivalent fractions, comparing and order fractions

English: Abbreviations

Spelling: From now on to find the spelling and enrichment lists, you and your child can click on the link to the right labeled "Spelling practice". This link takes you to spellingcity.com. It is the coolest site! You will then click on "Find a List", then type in corderman in the white bar. Next, you will click on Gina Corderman. This week's list is List 18 and enrichment words are List 18.5. This site allows your child to play games and even be tested on the words. It will say the word and even put the word in a sentence. Once your child is done taking the test, it will give you your child's score. It is an awesome tool for learning spelling. We will be using this website in computer lab every Wednesday.

That's it for now! Remember, this week there will be no reading/math homework because of the science homework. Happy inventing!