April+13

=__**APRIL 13**__=

=== **We were privileged this afternoon to have Toma Pavlov as our guest speaker. Toma is a foreign exchange student from Bulgaria. He is a senior at Earlham this year, living with Brandon Zehr's uncle! We were fortunate to have this great "connection", and we enjoyed learning about life in Bulgaria! Toma was a very personable and enjoyable speaker, and the kids were a great audience! This was a fantastic connection to our country projects!** ===

**The only Friday still available is** //__May 27!!__// W**e'd love to entertain one more guest speaker on that date, so please consider making a visit to our rooms!**
__** ANNOUNCEMENTS AND UPCOMING DATES :**__ **Mon., Apr. 23**...NO SCHOOL. Professional Development for teachers.

====//**For this final quarter, all of us in Gr. K-5 are adding a 1, 2, or 3 to the Success Charts if a student loses a stamp. We will still write what happened, but the addition of the number(s) will help with our data collection, and will also better inform you of which Bulldog Belief was being misused. 1 means there was a lack of respect, 2 a lack of responsibility, and 3 a lack of safety. **//====

**If your child is going to be absent for a few days due to a family trip, please let us know with a note in advance so we may gather homework to send with you. We can't always have //everything// ready to go, but it's very helpful to the teachers and the office to be aware of extended absences ahead of time. Thank you!**

=== Both homerooms will have a "Homework Club" each quarter. We will keep a chart in our rooms, tracking which students return their homework packets on time each week. Students who consistently return their packets each week will be rewarded at the end of each quarter! ===

=== //We have been informed that the kitchen can no longer store items that need to be frozen or refrigerated. You will need to provide a cooler if your child is bringing treats that require refrigeration. Thank you for your cooperation.// ===

Our field trip to Neal Smith Wildlife Refuge is scheduled for Friday, May 4th. Permission slips have been sent home. Please be sure to sign and return the form. If you are interested in chaperoning, please let your child's teacher know by April 13th so that arrangements can be made and finalized.

__**LITERACY:**__
We are continuing to introduce the 6-Traits of Writing. We have focused on the traits of Ideas, Organization, and most recently, Word Choice. In reading, we are making predictions and connections. We are using context clues, identifying main events, questioning, inferring and summarizing. Please encourage your child to read at home.

__**MATH:**__
==== Please continue to add basic multiplication facts to your addition/subtraction fact practice. We are continuing in our geometry and measurement unit. Our next unit of study will be fractions and decimals. FYI...for this final unit of study, students will be staying in their homerooms for math. ====

__SCIENCE:__
We returned to our Air and Weather unit this week. We made parachutes to learn about air resistance, and we worked with systems of bottles, flexible tubing, syringes, and plastic pipes to learn about compressed air and air pressure. We got a little wet as we created our own homemade water fountains! On Thursday we learned how the terms "temperature" and "thermometer" tell us about the air around us.

__**SOCIAL STUDIES:**__
==== The objectives this chapter are to analyze the role of natural resources in creating new communities and to describe some ways that communities change as they grow. They will be discussing why natural resources are important to industry, and they will give examples of the ways factories changed communities. The students will be responsible for listing some of the reasons immigrants came to the U.S., and they will be describing how communities changed when large numbers of immigrants came to the U.S. Finally, the students will explain how the automobile changed how and where people lived and worked, and students will identify changes made during the last century to provide people with better transportation. ====

We have been working very hard on our country projects the past few weeks. Next week we will be taking a break from our projects and returning to our previous chapter to review and wrap-up.

The Country Project is in full swing! Each student has chosen a country that s/he will research. Some students chose to work with a partner and some preferred to work independently. Please check with your child about their country choice and then visit the following link to find out more! Mrs. Volk's Google Site

The Country Potluck is scheduled for Tuesday, May 15th from 5:30-6:30 p.m. in the school cafeteria. Please visit the above google site for more information. ==== Check with your child about Daily Detective. The purpose of this project is to not only help the students learn about the countries of the world, but also to help them research. Each day a new clue will go up on our 'detective board'. The students will be able to write the clue down and bring it home so that you can, if needed, help your child to identify the country. The clues start out very broad and as the week goes on, get more specific. Please ask your child about Daily Detective and each daily clue. ==== Last week's successful detectives were: Connor, Lucy, Kylie, Tico, Isaac, and London.

__**MRS. VOLK:**__
IOWA ASSESSMENT NOTE: We have complete our portion of the Iowa Assessments. Students did a fantastic job being respectful to their peers by working quietly. Results will be sent home as soon as they are received and processed by the school. Thank you for your support at home.

The final book order of the year was due today. Orders should be in by the end of April. Thanks

Your child has been registered for Sumdog.com. This is a site that will help your child practice their math facts. Each student was given a username and password. They are encouraged to use this site at home.

Please continue to encourage your child to complete and return their weekly homework packet. Some students are not returning their packets in a timely fashion, if at all. Please be looking for those each Monday and they are to be returned on Thursday. Thank you to those students who are completing and returning their packets each week. You are showing responsibility when you do so!

I sent home a reading calendar for April but did not specify a reading goal. I want the students to set their own reading goal...not too little, give a bit of a challenge, but not over the top either. :) Your child may opt to talk to you for a little guidance on setting an appropriate reading goal. Thanks for your reading support at home.

Congratulations to Tico, Kylie, Josie, Lucy, Max, Ethan, Anthony, Isaac, Sophia, Allen, London, and Kaia for meeting the March Book-It reading goal.

A separate CONGRATULATIONS goes to Tico, Kylie, Josie, Lucy, Max, Ethan, Anthony, Allen, and London for meeting the reading goal all 6 months. A special 'something' is coming your way!

**__MRS. SKAHILL/MISS STEPHENS__** //Congratulations to the following students who completed the March Book-It reading goal and book report://

** //Lily, Kennedy, Emma, Connor, Sydney, and Samantha.// **
** And a __//BIG CONGRATULATIONS//__ to the following students who completed __//ALL SIX MONTHS//__ of the Book-It goals and book reports! What an accomplishment! ** ** LILY, KENNEDY, EMMA, CONNOR, and SYDNEY **

Just a reminder: Spelling word lists are handed out at the //beginning// of each unit so they can be studied in preparation for the cloze test. Watch for the word lists glued into the planner. As mentioned previously, we won't be taking a cloze test every week...we work up to tests as we go through the word/phonics lessons in each unit.