Week of November 4 - November 8

Week of November 4 - November 8

UPCOMING DATES: 
Fri.,    Nov, 15 - Pizza Party in Mrs. Blower's class
Thur., Nov. 21 PTO All School Skating Party 
Wed., Nov. 27 No School – Thanksgiving Break
Thur., Nov. 28 No School – Thanksgiving Break
Fri., Nov. 29 No School – Thanksgiving Break


HOMEWORK:
ENGLISH: Pronoun paper for those who did not complete it.
MATH: There is an adding and subtracting decimals page- 5 problems.

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FUSION PAGE   Mrs. Blowers Fusion Page

You can find fractions and other math links here as well as spelling, grammar, and sites for reading.

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PIZZA PARTY FRIDAY!      
This week I found out that I had won the WGVU Cool Teacher Award. Olivia Johnston wrote a paper about why she thought I should receive this and her paper was chosen. Congratulations to Olivia! Thanks to her our whole class gets treated to a pizza party with pop. We will also be videotaped as a class for a brief spot that will air on WGVU around children's programs.    
  I will be sending home a release form for each student which needs to be signed in order to be included in the picture and video. Please have this returned by Friday!                                           

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Outdoor Discovery Center Field trip
Sorry I missed this, but the kids enjoyed their time there and learned more about Native American culture as it ties into our social studies unit.

MATH:
  This week we reviewed concepts from our fraction unit and took the test on Thursday.  Something I continue to notice is that many students are making minor mistakes which cost them points- sometimes enough to make a difference between a '2' and a '3'. In Middle School mistakes like this can be the difference between a A and a C because the scoring is tighter. Mistakes were in subtraction, multiplication, and division facts particularly but also mistakes caused by not showing work and doing it only in their heads. 
   Students who showed they knew the material but made these little mistakes were given their tests back to fix for full points. They were also allowed to try to fix others where they didn't show work etc.  Each student goes over his/her test with me to discuss material they missed and we will continue work on these concepts.

READING
  We continue reading Long Way from Chicago in Book Club. I am rotating among groups daily. We are focusing on comprehension strategies such as summarizing as we read, asking questions, using text clues, vocabulary building, and using text support.
 
WRITING:   
  We are finishing up Tribe Reports. Our next writing pieces will be a summary and a fun persuasive piece which I will describe when we get to it!

SCIENCE: We are talking about Newton's First Law of motion: An object at rest stays at rest iunless acted upon by an outside force and remains in motion in a straight line unless acted upon by an outside force. We have done some investigations for this. We also watched an NFL video clip with Lester Holt and players showing and describing how Newton's Law applies to football. Another fun one was watching a cannon-sized slingshot using a steel ball and a shot put to shoot at an old car. Students were asked to apply Newton's Law to this including velocity and inertia.
  We continue to talk about ways forces and motion apply to our lives all the time every day! 

SPELLING:
   I will send it home Lesson 9 on Monday and I remembered to place it under the Spelling tab this time. The The test will be Friday.
We have been working on 1st, 2nd, and 3rd person pronouns and this coing week we will work on past tense and adjectives.
If your child wants to play games/ practice tests, go to:
Spelling City