Today we read a Great Body Shop about drugs.  There might be a few questions.  Just so you are aware, this Great Body shop discusses the fact that caffeine and medicine are drugs as well.  There may be questions about why it is okay for adults to drink coffee and children to drink soda and okay for us to take medicine from the doctor, but not okay for people to do other kinds of drugs.

Today the students are helping me write about our day.  This post is in their words.

We are writing this stuff on blogger.
Today was epic like pie, but we miss Diego.
Today was really weird.  It was cloudy then sunny then stormy then sunny then cloudy again.  We had a lot of rainy day recess.  We felt lazy today.

We learned how to use the teacher's rubric to grade our reading journals.

Today we did the MAP test and it was hard.  We did the MAP test today instead of math, which was actually reading and not math.  We finished the MAP test.  It took some people longer than others to finish the MAP test.  The MAP test was hard, but we did our best.

Today we reviewed character traits, and how to use text evidence when are identifying them.  We also learned what word roots are.  We talked a bit about the roots cycl, graph, and phon.  We added prefixes and suffixes to those roots to make them into familiar words.

In math we estimated and measured capacity in cups, pints, and quarts.  Tomorrow we will be converting measurements of capacity.

Today we learned about how columns of air can vibrate to make a sound, and about how the length of that air column can determine the pitch of the sound.

In the Tuesday folders should be a few pieces of work from last week.  I sent home last week's reading center work, a test on fractions, and some of the work that we did for measurement of length.  The fractions test was very difficult, so please don't be too alarmed by it.  There is a pink letter explaining more about that in the Tuesday folder as well. 

Today we shared the story Raven by Gerald McDermott.  We had a discussion about whether Raven or the Sky Chief are evil characters in the story.  We did not come to a consensus about either character, but we had a good conversation about it. 

I math we measured things in pounds and converted those measurements into ounces.  We also learned what a ton is. 

If you would like to hear more about our day today, you could ask about:
Character traits of Raven
The Incredible Shrinking Rat
Who are the settlers and what did the tribe decide to do about them?

Report cards are on their way to you.  There are actually 4 weeks of reading work, not 5.
Have a great weekend.

Today we worked on converting customary measurements of length, and tomorrow we will begin learning about customary measurements of weight.

Today we reviewed some of the things that we learned about rocks and minerals earlier in the year, and we watched the Planet Earth video about caves.

If you would like to hear more about our day today, you can ask your kiddo about:

What animals live in caves?
How do people get in and out of caves?
What rock are most caves in?
How long would it take to briskly was 5 miles? (at about 20 minutes per mile)
How many feet are in 3 miles?
How many yards are in 3 miles?
What is the perimeter of a 6 ft square yard? What is that perimeter in inches?
What is the area of a 6ft square yard?
What makes the difference between a summary story that gets a 3 for a grade and one that gets a 4 for a grade?

Report cards are going to be coming home on Friday.  Inside each report card envelope there should be 5 reading work packets that represent 5 recent weeks worth of reading work.  There should be 3 health quizzes (that number might vary depending on absences).  There should also be 3 math tests and a results sheet from our last MBA (it is a single sheet of paper with what looks like a temperature gauge telling you if your child falls into the red, yellow, or green category for math.  I appologize that no art is coming home at the momment.  We are still enjoying it here at school.  The report card envelope needs to be signed by you and sent back to me. 

Next Wednesday is our parent math night!  I hope to see some of you there. 

In April we are going to the zoo.  I appreciate all of the offers of help with our field trip.  I have as many parents as I am allowed to take with us already confirmed for the trip.  There are a lot of things that we could use help with here in the classroom, however.  If you would like to come and help us out, please let me know!

If you want to hear more about our day today, you can ask your kiddo about:

What is a prefix?
What tools can you use to measure length?
How can you turn a ruler into a musical instrument?
What is ST math?

Happy Tuesday!  Thank you to the Hochman family for the new books you donated to our classroom library!

Today we worked on story summaries.  We discussed how to make sure that you have the theme, plot, and personal response all included in your two summary paragraphs.  The homework journal summaries have been pretty good, but I am hoping to see more around the theme of the story, and the personal response to the story.

In math we worked on customary measurement.  We are rounding measurements to the nearest inch or 1/2 inch.  For example, if something is 3 3/4 inches, then it is about 4 inches.  We are also converting inches, feet, yards, and miles.  For example, if a football field is 50 yards long, how long is it in feet?  How long in inches?

To learn more about what we are doing in class you could ask your kiddo about:

The ship that we spotted on the horizon.
The trader that bought our artwork and hand made clothing.
How are pitch and volume different?
Who is the Rough-Faced Girl?

It sounds like the class got along well with Mr. Liu.  Today we did a science experiment to explore where high pitch noises and low pitch noises come from. 

Happy Friday! 

It has been a long week with a lot of fun and new activities.  We had a little bit of a rough time with the guest teacher being in the room yesterday, so we had a long discussion about self-control.  Ms. Anderson from the library took the class over today for a few minutes and gave a glowing report on their behavior.

Today we worked on finding equivalent fractions.  Next week we will finish up our chapter on fractions.

Since today is the first day of Women's History Month and we are learning about sound in science, we read an article about JoAnn Falletta who was one of the first female orchestra conductors.  

Next week we will be talking about tall tales during reading.  We will have a guest teacher on Tuesday and Wednesday.