May 2, 2008

Dear Families,

            Happy May!  We enter this month learning about metaphors and similes – another way to make our writing rich.  The kids have been working with poetry and have had the opportunity to use a variety of figurative language to make their poetry create both music and images in the reader’s mind.  We have learned about onomatopoeia, alliteration, personification, rhythm and rhyme.  We had a chance to do some online learning on Wednesday and participated with several other schools, some as far away as Michigan, to learn how easy it can be to write poetry.  Ken Nesbitt, poet and author, led us through this lesson as we created a wonderful poem entitled “Oopsie Doodle”.  Some of our students are on a poetry writing spree, filling their journal with wonderful writing.  We also worked this week on the spelling patterns making /s/, rhyming and compound words, unusual spelling patterns, and making word chains.

            We have been progressing nicely through our chapter on division and the kids seem to have a good grasp of this concept and how it relates to multiplication.  We have been learning a variety of strategies to help us with the division facts we don’t know, such as using repeated subtraction, using manipulatives (cubes, beans, etc.), using a number line, and using the related multiplication fact (remember the concept of fact families?).  We have also been working with quite a few story problems, especially those that require multiple steps.

            In social studies we have continued learning about the geography of Japan and how it affects the culture of a country.  We learned several reasons why cities are built where they are and that cities built on bays are offered protection from the harshness of the ocean.  They tied in the fact that our own capital, Olympia, was chosen partially because of the protection it was offered way down at the southern end of Puget Sound.  We are learning about some of the similarities and differences between Japanese life and our own as we read Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes, by Eleanor Coerr.  This short novel tells about the life of a Japanese girl who is sick with leukemia.  As background information to aid in understanding this book, we briefly discussed WWII and our involvement with Japan.  This discussion included the bombing of Pearl Harbor as our impetus to join the war, and also our decision to bomb Hiroshima as an attempt at ending the war.  We have been careful to keep things superficial and have not gone into anything graphic, including pictures, as this is too much for this age group.  However, the novel has its merits in broaching the subject of cultural differences and similarities and how understanding these can help lead us towards peace.  We also learned about Children’s Day (May 5^th), a festival in Japan in which families hang carp from their homes to represent the importance of perseverance and strength that children need to succeed.  We created our own carp and will hang them in our classroom for the duration of our unit on Japan. *Note: Please return the folder your child used to organize his/her LRS research.  We will reuse these as we gather facts about Japan’s geography, home life, school life, and food.  

            In science we identified four different minerals, quartz, fluorite, calcite, and gypsum. Students used careful observation and a scratch test to decide which mineral was which. The scratch test is used by geologists to test the hardness of minerals. We used a paper clip, a penny, and our fingernail to scratch the minerals. Only the softest mineral, gypsum, could be scratched with our fingernails. We were able to put the minerals in order from the hardest to softest based

on what would scratch them. Students also learned that geologists often need to use more than one property to identify a mineral.

            In religion we have continued learning about the history of our church and how this helps us to understand who we are today.  We have also begun a unit on discipleship, which will carry us into next week.  We began our Talking About Touching program and completed the first two lessons which touched on walking safety and fire safety.  We will continue with other ways to keep ourselves safe in the next few lessons.

            Art Parents today taught about the use of pictorial narrative – using pictures to add to the story we are reading.  This lesson included how illustrators sometimes use borders around their pictures to enhance the storyline.  The kids made pictures illustrating one part of the story “The Lion and the Mouse” using water color.  They made their illustrations more defined by including permanent marker around the figures and by adding a border.  Look for these to come home soon.

Dates to remember:

· Friday, May 9 – May liturgy – 11:00 am Mass in the church

· May 16-18 – ASB Spring Musical

· Friday, May 23 – noon dismissal

· Friday, May 30 – Book report due – Students need to read a fiction book of their choice and complete one of the choices for the book report.

April 18, 2008

Dear Parents,

We had a great week of testing – the kids entered the classroom confident and ready to show us what they’ve got. We finished all of the language testing and will move on to the math portion of the test next week. If you would like to see the testing schedule for our classroom, please refer to our class site on the ASB website. The schedule will be listed below today’s newsletter on the site. Remember to continue sending in healthy snacks next week and to be sure that your child is getting plenty of rest each night.

We have finished our book Hundred Dresses as well as our Steps to Respect bullying prevention program. We talked today about how we might have changed the way things happened in the book by simply being the right kind of bystanders when the bullying first began. We role played how we might have helped avoid or stop the bullying. Role playing can be a powerful teaching strategy as it “arms” the students with the right words or actions to use when the real situation occurs. Look for the worksheet about being a bystander in your child’s work this week. It offers concrete things a bystander can do to help in a bullying situation.

The next program we will be teaching is called “Talking About Touching”. I am sending home information about this program. Lori Landes, our school counselor, will also be offering information about this program if you are interested in attending one of her meetings. Look for more news about this to come.

In religion this week we learned about the four marks of the Church, that it is one (one family of God, sharing in the same beliefs), holy (connected to God), catholic (universal, offered to everyone), and apostolic (spread originally by the apostles, but now spread by us).

Social studies had us in the “Land of the Rising Sun” studying Japan’s geography. We created a map to help us remember where Japan is located relative to the rest of the world. We also highlighted the major islands, the mountains, the bodies of water around it, and the major cities of this country. We adorned our windows with pictures of sakura or cherry blossoms and learned about how important this festival is to the Japanese.

In science we broke apart our rocks and recorded observations about what we found in our science journals. We separated the various parts of the rock and put these things in water to see if they would break down further. We also began an experiment to see if the rock contained sodium by putting the small rock particles in water first, then letting the water sit in an open container to evaporate. If there is a salty deposit, we will know that the salt came from the rock.

Most of our math time this week was taken up by testing, but we did manage to squeeze in a few quick reviews of the concepts learned thus far, as well as learning some of the vocabulary associated with division (dividend, divisor, and quotient). Language centers also dwindled this week, but we were able to begin our baseball novels as post-test reading. We’ve been able to squeeze in a few brief discussions about our novels as well as a couple of lessons about the rhythm and rhyme of poetry – a writing focus this month. Look for the poetry book report rubric on our website to get an idea of what I’ll be looking for when grading it. I’ve also sent home a copy of the poetry contest at the Seattle Public Library in case you’re interested.

Upcoming events:

Wednesday, April 23^rd – class pictures (full uniform with sweater or sweatshirt)

Friday, April 25^th – No school (faculty day of service)

Have a great weekend! Mrs. E. and Mr. H.

Poem Presentation Rubric

Name_________________________

Presentation

Length of Poem _____________________

Did the presentation include the following?

Title of Poem Yes/No

Author Yes/No

Memory (Were prompts needed?)

Yes/No

If yes, number of prompts ___________

Did the speaker speak . . .

Loudly Yes/No

Clearly Yes/No

Slowly Yes/No

*Handwritten Poem

Completed and turned in on time ______

Written Correctly (no spelling errors) ______

Handwriting (neat and legible) ______

Illustrations ______

Comments:

3A ITBS Schedule ~ Mrs. Eusebio

Monday 14^th	Tuesday 15^th	Wed. 16^th	Thurs. 17^th	Friday 18^th
8:40 – 9:25 P.E.	8:40 – 9:55 Drama and Library	8:45 – 9:55 Reading Comp. Part 2	8:45 – 9:55 Word Analysis	8:40 – 9:55 Social Studies or Science
9:20 – 9:55 Religion
9:55 – 10:15 Recess	9:55 – 10:15 Recess	9:55 – 10:15 Recess	9:55 – 10:15 Recess	9:55 – 10:15 Recess
10:15 – 10:30 Snack/ D.E.A.R.	10:15 – 10:30 Snack/ D.E.A.R.	10:15 – 10:30 Snack/ D.E.A.R.	10:15 – 10:30 Snack/ D.E.A.R.	10:15 – 10:30 Snack/ D.E.A.R.
10:30 – 11:25 Fill out sheets Vocabulary	10:30 – 11:25 Reading Comp. Part 1	10:30 – 11:25 Usage, Expression	10:30 – 11:25 Listening	10:30 – 11:25 Language Centers
	12:30 – 1:30 Spelling, Capitalization, Punctuation
Monday 21^st	Tuesday 22^nd	Wed. 23^rd	Thurs. 24^th	Friday 25^th
8:40 – 9:25 P.E.	8:40 – 9:55 Drama and Library	8:45 – 9:55 Math Centers	8:45 – 9:55 Math Centers	8:40 – 9:55 Social Studies or Science
9:20 – 9:55 Religion
9:55 – 10:15 Recess	9:55 – 10:15 Recess	9:55 – 10:15 Recess	9:55 – 10:15 Recess	9:55 – 10:15 Recess
10:15 – 10:30 Snack/ D.E.A.R.	10:15 – 10:30 Snack/ D.E.A.R.	10:15 – 10:30 Snack/ D.E.A.R.	10:15 – 10:30 Snack/ D.E.A.R.	10:15 – 10:30 Snack/ D.E.A.R.
10:30 – 11:25 Language Centers	10:30 – 11:25 Estimation, Concepts	10:30 – 11:25 Prob. Solving, Data Interp.	10:30 – 11:25 Computation	10:30 – 11:25 Language Centers

* We will have make-up test time the week of April 28^th – May 2^nd during language center time (10:30 – 11:25).

April 11, 2008

Dear Families,

We had a wonderful day sharing our LRS projects with one another and with the entire school. The students were clearly well prepared and knowledgeable about their topics. They handled the excitement very well and were quite the experts as people visited their tables. Hopefully, they’ve learned some essential skills throughout the process – how to manage their time, how to research, how to divide a broad topic into manageable categories, how to take notes and rewrite information into their own words, how to make a presentation board interesting, how to present to a variety of audiences – among many other skills. I hope the experience was helpful to you as well. If you have any feedback or suggestions to make the program even better, please feel free to let me know.

We have been reviewing some of the skills we’ve learned in language centers this week as well as learning some new ones. We studied idioms again and realized that we use many, despite our (okay – their) young age. We studied the spelling patterns for the /k/ sound, reviewed contractions, and discovered again how adding an r after a vowel changes the sound the vowel makes (tap, tarp). We are nearing the end of our book The Hundred Dresses. This has been such a wonderful supplement to our “Steps to Respect” program which has us recognizing bullying, learning to refuse it assertively, and learning how and why to report it. We have only two more lessons before we have finished the “Steps to Respect” program. We will then move on to the “Talking About Touching” program and will send you more information about it as we get closer.

In math we have begun our unit on division. The kids have already pieced together that knowing how fact families work can help them learn their division math facts. They know that if 6÷2=3, then 6÷3=2. This cuts in half the number of facts they need to memorize. They also learned this week that division is just repeated subtraction and that they can use a number line to help them find how many times they can take 2 away from 6 (3). We will continue to work through this unit for the next couple of weeks. We’ve also been reviewing some concepts learned at the beginning of the year in preparation for the ITBS. We’ve reviewed geometry (plane and space shapes, naming polygons, angles, perimeter and area), estimating and rounding, regrouping in addition and subtraction, and have also touched on multiplying a one-digit by a two-digit number (2 x 24 = 48). We’ll continue to review other concepts and will introduce simple fractions to the kids before we begin the math section of the ITBS the second week of testing.

We have entered the “Land of the Rising Sun”, as Japan is called. This social studies unit will carry us to the end of the year. The kids enjoyed a Power Point slide show about what they will be learning, and then brainstormed what they thought they already knew about the geography, food, home life and school life of Japan. We will begin studying the geography next week in order to begin understanding how much this affects the way people live.

As we begin ITBS testing next week, please be mindful that we are keeping it low key and hope that you will too. Although we have been talking about testing all along and reminding them to do their best, this should not be considered the high stakes testing that some make it out to be. You can support at home by helping your child to get a good night’s rest, by feeding him/her a healthy breakfast full of protein and complex carbohydrates (Pop Tarts probably don’t make the list of healthy choices!), and by sending in a healthy snack for your child each day. Packaged, sugary treats do more harm than help, so please save these for another time. I have posted a copy of our testing schedule on the 3A website on top of the newsletter for your info.

Thanks for supporting your child these last few months in preparation for the LRS!

Chris Eusebio and Mark Hastings

April 4, 2008

Dear Families,

We were blessed with great weather for our field trip to St. James, Lake View Cemetery and Volunteer Park. It was a wonderful way to reinforce what we are learning about in religion (church leadership) and to wrap up our unit on Seattle history. We were also able to squeeze in a game of Seattle history charades today to recap what we learned. Our next stop in social studies will be Japan and a unit about cultural understanding.

In science we have begun a geology unit. The students are learning to examine rocks carefully as geologist do. This week they drew pictures, made observations, and took measurements of a mock rock. In later weeks they will be breaking the mock rock apart to find out what it is made of. This will lead to a study of the difference between rocks and minerals and eventually to a study of mountain formation, which will tie nicely into our study of Japan and how its mountainous geography affects its culture.

In language centers this week we studied the spelling patterns for the long e and i, and the suffix –ly. We also finished the last of our cursive letters. We will continue using cursive to strengthen our skills. I hope these kids can really “wow” the fourth grade teachers next year with their beautiful cursive. We began a new book called The Hundred Dresses by Eleanor Estes. This book deals with the troubling issue of bullying and presents a variety of perspectives about it. The kids have been engaged in some thoughtful conversations about this issue and have connected it to situations in their own lives when they have been bullied, have witnessed bullying, or have failed to take a stand to stop someone from bullying. We will continue reading this book and tying it to Steps to Respect (our bullying prevention program).

In math we have been learning the metric system of measurement. We have covered length/distance, capacity, temperature, and weight (the same areas of measurement we covered using customary units of measure). The children are ready to switch over to this base-ten system that seems to make so much sense. The next time you are shopping, let them explore the shelves to find things that use this system of measurement. Next week we will touch on fractions and division, then quickly review the other concepts we’ve learned this year in preparation for the ITBS. Our Art Parents lesson today was an excellent review of symmetry. The kids have a sound understanding of this concept and used it to create “symmetry shoes”. Look for these to come home after they have graced our walls for a week or so.

The LRS is just around the corner. Unfortunately, the needs sheet we sent home listed the date incorrectly. The date of the LRS is Friday, April 11^th. Please return this sheet by Monday so we may plan for your space and other needs.

April is National Poetry Month and our April book report will be to read a book of poetry. The book may be poetry from just one author, or it may be a book of poetry from a variety of authors. The kids will be required to memorize a poem that is at least 14 lines long. They will also write the poem in their best printing or cursive and illustrate it thoughtfully. It will be due Wednesday, April 30^th.

Dates to Remember:

April 11^th – LRS presentation day, plus 6-7PM

April 14^th – May 2^nd – ITBS testing (spread out over the three weeks)

April 25^th – No school, faculty in-service

April 30^th – Poetry book report due

Tonight is the 3^rd grade pool party and overnight. The office has provided us with the following details:

TO: All Third Grade Students and Parents

FROM: The Overnight Adults

RE: Third Grade Overnight

DATE: April 4, 2008

Below you will find a list of the drivers to and from the pool for the overnighter on Friday, April 4^th. Please make sure you are at the gym between 7:00-7:15 pm with the following items: swimsuit, towel, dry clothes, sleeping attire, sleeping bag/pillow, and toothbrush! Please do not send electronics or food unless your child requires a special diet. The teacher should be notified of any dietary restrictions prior to the event. We will have pizza around 7:15 before we go swimming. We will leave for the pool around 7:45 and swim from 8:30-10:00. We should be back to the gym by 10:30. Pick up is by 8:30 on Saturday morning. Please be on time!

Please let us know if you have any questions or scheduling problems.

Thank you.

March 21, 2008

Dear Families,

I hope you all enjoyed the triptychs about the Triduum yesterday. They were a great culminating project for our religion unit about Lent. I am also sending home the kids’ Lenten journals and textbook packets. They may finish any incomplete pages at home if they wish. Some finished theirs long ago. I hope they find the time to do some reflecting over the next couple days – the most important of the Church year.

In language centers this week we worked on the /oi/ sound (as in “boy”), the /s/ sound, which can be spelled s, ss, ce, ci, cy and sc, prefixes, and suffixes. We also finished reading our book about Helen Keller. If you want to rent a movie over vacation, I’m sure your child would be interested in one about her.

In math we finished learning about customary units of measure for time, distance/length, temperature, capacity, and weight. We reviewed these by playing a Jeopardy-style game using the Smart Board (I love that thing). The kids, while figuring out the answers as a table group, support one another’s learning. When we return, we’ll launch right into metric units of measure.

We have been working on our presentations about the Seattle pioneers in social studies and writing time. We will have a chance to share these when we return, as we will be wrapping up our unit on Seattle’s history by going on a field trip to Lakeview Cemetery, Volunteer Park, and St. James Cathedral (we’re also learning about leadership in the Church). I am counting on the following drivers on Wednesday, April 2^nd at 9:15 in the classroom (returning at 2PM): Allen, Brown, Gallaudet, Hampson, Loveland, and Ludden. Your child will have to dress in uniform and bring a sack lunch that day (bottled drink too).

If you have time over vacation, your child can work ahead on completing the LRS presentation board. This is done entirely at home (no time is given in class to complete this), so your child might want to pick away at it, a section at a time. If it’s done early, just keep it at home until the “big day” (April 11^th).

Don’t forget to work on the historical fiction book report. It is due on March 31^st, which happens to be the day we return from vacation.

If you have not yet done so, please return the permission slip for the 3^rd grade overnight, which is Friday, April 4^th. If you have questions about the event, please direct them to Sheila Cooper or Kathi Hand. While I am a supervisor for the event, I am not one of the coordinators.

Have a restful break and a joyous Easter!

Chris Eusebio and Mark Hastings

“Amazing love, how can it be that You, my King, would die for me?” Newsboys

March 13, 2008

Dear Parents,

We have had a whirlwind of a week with our field trip to the Seattle Underground and Pike Place Market, and trying to fit in ample learning in the short week. The tour helped us to grasp Seattle’s history “in the real”, and helped jump start our additions to the Seattle history timeline in our classroom. The children worked with renewed interest on their historical figure research project. They will be able to share the information they found when we go on our field trip to the Lakeview Cemetery, Wednesday, April 2^nd.

We have begun our biography of Helen Keller and are really thinking about things differently. The children wonder how anyone could actually even learn a language if they can’t hear it, how they can know how to get around if they are blind, and many other things that can create strong challenges. They have, astutely, identified that it really wasn’t good for Helen’s parents to give her everything she wanted just to avoid a temper tantrum. (Remind them of that the next time you are with them at Toys ‘R Us!) I look forward to finishing the book with them next week.

Our spelling centers this week focused mainly on choosing the correct suffix and knowing what to alter before adding it. They learned that before adding a suffix such as –ed or –ing, you double the final consonant when a word ends in just one vowel and one consonant (e.g. tap → tapped, versus room → roomed). They discovered that when a word ends in one vowel and one consonant, such as tap, the vowel is a short sound and that it becomes important to double that final consonant to distinguish between tapped and taped, or mopped and moped.

In math we worked more on measuring distance, length, width, and height. We have only used customary units of measure at this point and will introduce metric units when we return from vacation so as to avoid confusion between the two. Please give your child ample opportunities to measure things at home, or to estimate the size of objects using inches, feet, yards, or miles. We also worked more on elapsed time and reading an analog clock, learned about measuring weight using ounces and pounds, temperature using degrees Fahrenheit, and capacity using cups, pints, quarts, and gallons. That’s a lot of information to process, although this isn’t the first time they’ve seen these things. Again, please give them opportunities to measure using these units at home.

We have been learning more about Easter and its relationship to Passover, and watching “The Prince of Egypt” at lunchtime. We are still finishing our religion packet about Lent and looking for opportunities to write in our Lenten journals. We will be finishing an art project to send home next week on Holy Thursday. Mine is still hanging in my dining room from several years ago. I’m sure you’ll enjoy yours.

Upcoming dates:

Friday, March 14^th – no school, faculty professional development day

Monday, March 17^th – St. Patrick’s Day, free dress if wearing green

Tuesday, March 18^th – Passover seder meal in St. Ben’s during lunch (Call Lynn O’Connor if you wish to help – I think we’re okay on that end though.)

Thursday, March 20^th – beginning of Triduum (Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday – Ask your child about it and the significance of each day.)

Friday, March 21^st – all school participation in Stations of the Cross 9:30 in church

(And in my day – no meat, no movies, no travel, no fun! Ask your child why then, they call it “Good Friday” and see what he/she says.)

Spring break begins at noon!

Have a wonderful weekend!

Chris Eusebio and Mark Hastings

February 29, 2008

Dear Parents,

As we progress through Lent, we continue to learn about God’s law of love, how it relates to the Beatitudes, and the amazing forgiveness God offers us. We read the story of Joseph and his brothers and saw how Joseph forgave his brothers despite what they had done to him. Most of us admitted that had we been in Joseph’s situation, we may not have found it as easy to forgive. The kids will have the opportunity to experience God’s forgiveness through the Sacrament of Reconciliation on Wednesday, March 5^th here at school. This is being offered to those who have already received their First Reconciliation within their own parish (this is to insure that the first time for them is a special occasion and done with their own priest). Please look for the form in today’s Friday folder. Return it on Monday so that I know who will be receiving reconciliation and who will simply be receiving a blessing. Children are not required to receive the sacrament, but they are encouraged to do so if they’ve already received their First Reconciliation.

Our Steps to Respect lesson this week focused on appropriate ways to join a group. This can be a difficult social skill to master (and indeed, I would only expect them to get better at it – not master it). We watched a brief video that showed examples of successful and not-so-successful ways to join a group. We will continue learning about this next week.

Our spelling lessons this week reviewed homophones, prefixes and suffixes, and the spelling patterns used to make the /oo/ sound (moon, tune, blue, etc.). The kids found eleven different ways to spell the /oo/ sound! We spent a lot of time looking at different reading strategies for both fiction and non-fiction texts and discovered that non-fiction writing usually includes a lot of graphic aids (maps, charts/tables, diagrams, etc.). We also discovered that non-fiction writing can sometimes be more difficult to read. We will continue to learn about reading non-fiction next week. Most of the kids have finished writing the final draft of the opinion paragraph about their L.R.S. topic. I will save these so they can set them out with their boards on presentation day, April 11^th.

In social studies this week we learned about the usefulness of another type of graphic aid – a timeline. We have posted a timeline of Seattle’s history in our classroom and in the hall and will add to it as we move through this unit. Our underground tour is set for March 11^th. We will also be visiting the Pike Place Market that day. We are missing a few permission slips and are still in need of a driver or two.

The students learned about changing states of matter this week in science. They conducted an experiment to see how long it would take an ice cube to melt on top of a heater, with a hair dryer, and all alone at room temperature. They also watched condensation form on Sarah Wrap covering a bowl of water and recorded their observations as a scientist would. They will continue learning about scientific method as they progress through the states of matter unit.

We completed our chapter test on multiplication, took a pretest for the next chapter on time and measurement, and began our first two lessons about telling time to the quarter hour and using a calendar. We will continue through this chapter for the next two weeks.

We will soon be preparing for Easter by learning about how Jesus celebrated during his time. Of course, he didn’t celebrate Easter, but Passover. We will be learning about this Jewish festival and then have a Passover Seder meal in St. Ben’s Hall. The date has been set for Tuesday, March 18^th. I am in need of a parent coordinator who can be in charge of keeping track of the things we need (food items, etc.) and coordinating other parent helpers for that date. If you would like to serve in this way, please let me know.

Finally, I will be gone next Wednesday, Thursday and Friday to Orlando at a conference with my husband. I am leaving your children in the good hands of Janice Bede, my substitute. Janice is a long-time teacher and has a very positive, encouraging nature. Your children will love her – I just hope they let me back in the door!

Upcoming Events:

Health Screening Rechecks – March 5^th in the morning

Mrs. Eusebio is gone, Janice Bede subs – March 5^th, 6^th, and 7^th

Tour of Underground and Pike Place Market – March 11^th leaving at 9:15 AM

February 22, 2008

Dear Families,

It was great to be back after a few days of needed rest. The kids settled right back into the swing of things and we squeezed quite a bit of learning into the short week.

In religion we began learning about God’s law of love and how we are expected to love and forgive everyone (whether we like them or not). This tied in nicely to the first lesson of our new “Steps to Respect” program. While the Second Step program that we used during the beginning of the year taught social and emotional skills (empathy, impulse control, problem solving, and anger management), the Steps to Respect program is a bullying prevention program. Our first lesson focused on respect and what that means, and also on what it feels like when someone doesn’t treat you with respect. We will continue with this program over the next couple of months and will keep you informed of our focus in subsequent lessons.

We finally finished the math packets we have been working through for our multiplication unit. We are not finished with our unit yet, and will review some of the concepts next week before taking our end-of-chapter test. We will also continue working through our math fact binders – so don’t give up the good work you are doing on math facts at home.

We did not complete a spelling unit this week (because of the vacation), but focused our attention on cursive and finishing the reflections we had about Little House in the Big Woods. We are also progressing nicely through our writing project related to “audience”. The children shared strategies with one another on how to work most efficiently when working with a partner. We discovered that having one person write while the other watched was a “waste o’ time”. Hopefully they will work a bit on this skill. They also began their L.R.S. opinion paragraph graphic organizer. We will be using this in class next week to write an opinion paragraph that will be displayed alongside their L.R.S. project on the big day (April 11^th).

Your kids did some “virtual learning” today, compliments of 21^st Century Learning (an organization that offers us educational resources). They interacted with the on-line instructor (based in Arizona) who taught them map skills and how they might be used to study the United States. They learned about the difference between natural regions (shown by physical and topographic maps), and political or “man made” regions which are shown by political maps (showing cities, states, countries, etc.). They seemed to enjoy their first experience with this kind of learning, and we will explore opportunities of this type for the future. We followed up the lesson with a science “Jeopardy” game on the Smart Board to review states of matter and physical properties. This type of game is engaging, and is a wonderful way to review the concepts learned thus far.

We finished our week with a lesson today about cubism and its creator, Pablo Picasso (or “PiCostco” as several students related back to me – Are we shopping too much?!). They created their own masterpieces using the elements of cubism, which allow for a great degree of creativity and uniqueness. Look for these works to come home after they have adorned our hallways for a bit.

Reminders:

Book report due February 29^th

Health screening recheck Wednesday, March 5^th

Have a wonderful weekend!

Chris Eusebio and Mark Hastings

February 15, 2008

Dear Families,

We had a wonderful Valentine’s Day celebration yesterday! The students enjoyed the breakfast of heart-shaped French toast and waffles, sausages, fresh fruit, juice, and hot chocolate. What a healthy way to start an otherwise candy-filled day. Thank you so much to the parents who came in to cook and serve.

We continued learning about Lent this week and came to the conclusion that it is not just about giving up, but of giving; not just about not doing, but of doing. We also explored the concept of forgiveness and learned that a prodigal is someone who makes mistakes, but realizes those mistakes and asks forgiveness for them. We learned the song “Undo” by Rush of Fools to exemplify the concept of forgiveness and that “I need You, need Your help. I can't do this myself. You’re the only one who can undo what I've become.” We also began our Lenten journals, a place for reflection and response, and will continue using these throughout the remainder of Lent. We had a beautiful Lenten gathering in the church at the end of the day today. We will continue to gather as a school several more times before the end of Lent as a way to share with one another reflections about this time of preparation.

In social studies we continued our study of Seattle. We learned about the pioneers’ arrival to Alki Point in November of 1851, and what a dreary, rainy, tearful arrival it was. We also explored the reasons that the Puget Sound area was a good place for them to settle and why the Denny party chose to move there from Portland. Next week we will learn about the people who were here long before us.

In science this week, students experimented with a “mystery matter.” The goal was to discover if the matter was a solid or a liquid. Students tested it using their hands and found that it acted as both a solid and a liquid. After testing it and writing about their observations, they were informed that this state of matter is called a colloidal suspension. We had mixed cornstarch and water, and the cornstarch became suspended in the water – that is what made it act as both a liquid and a solid. Students also read about and acted out how atoms move within each state of matter. They learned that in solids the atoms are packed closely together and move very little; in liquids the atoms are more spread out and can flow over one another; and in gases the atoms are even more spread out and will continue to spread out to fill the space.
Language centers had us reviewing contractions. These do not seem to be a challenge when we are focusing on them or looking for them to make corrections on others’ work, but they still seem to be overlooked by many in their own writing. We also reviewed affixes (prefixes and suffixes) and