This blog's purpose is to keep you informed on the day-to-day happenings of our classroom. It's also a place where you can communicate with me. So please leave a comment, and I'll get back to you as soon as possible.
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Before the year is over, I wanted to tell you that I was proud of all the students and how they rose to the occasion in presenting our play. There were many times in the early days of December when I thought we might not be able to pull it off. I was especially worried about our off-stage behavior, so I was pleasantly surprised when at the first performance everyone did exactly what they were suppose to do. It was very satisfying and very helpful for each student's confidence and sense of being a part of a team. Let's hope in carries over into the New Year!
To view your Christmas card from me click here.
Merry Christmas!
The play went great today! We're getting rave reviews from our audiences and the students are really enjoying themselves. Hmm, maybe reading isn't boring after all. We have only one performance tomorrow at 10:00. Don't forget their Christmas concert is tomorrow afternoon at 1:00.
Tonight's homework is to start a paragraph about Christmas. It can be their favorite Christmas, a Christmas tradition, what they like best about Christmas, etc. We will revise them tomorrow morning.
Enjoy your evening. (The party went well this afternoon, and thanks to everyone who helped out 
)
Tomorrow's the big day! Our performances begin tomorrow at 10:00 and 1:00. Come any time you'd like.
Homework is a math page that practices the large numbers. Ask your child to read the numbers aloud to you as well as write them.
Our Christmas party will also be tomorrow afternoon at 1:00. Thanks to Mrs. Reed we have the treats all lined up.
It should be an exciting day.
Look in your child's notebook for your invitation to our play. Tomorrow is our final dress rehearsal...I hope we'll be ready for you all.
Beside practicing for the play, the only subject we did was spelling (I take that back, we also had a fun math lesson where students figured out how many hours and minutes old they were on their last birthday). Tonight's homework is to write each word that was missed two or three times.
I've scheduled our Christmas party to be Wednesday afternoon at 1:30. If you would like to help out contact Mrs. Reed.
Have a good evening.
Whoops! We have nice invitations for our class play, but I forgot to send them home.
Performance will be Wednesday (10 and 1:00), Thursday (10 only due to the afternoon Christmas concert), and Friday (10 and 1). Come to any performance you would like.
Have a good weekend.
The social studies test is on its way home. Homework tonight is to finish the test. Your child will probably need the most help on the essay question (remind them to start with an indent too). Helping him/her to use their book as a resource is also a difficult skill.
In math we continued to work with large numbers. We compared city populations with questions like, "What's another city with about a 100, 000 more/less people?" It was great place value and rounding practice.
Play practice went well (we still need lighting) and we enjoyed talking about animals and their young this afternoon.
Good night.
Tonight's homework is more practice of what he did in math today. We learned how to read and write numbers up to the millions place. Some students have a hard time knowing how to say the larger numbers, so try to do problem number 2 on the homework page with them tonight.
My main worry now concerning the play is lighting. If anyone out there has some kind of spotlight we could use, please let me know as soon as possible. Keep practicing.
This afternoon we finished up the chapter on Tencochtitlan, and I will send home the test tomorrow night. We ended the day by learning the cursive letters "r" and "s".
Have a good night.
Math is one of the subjects were doing beside working on our play. I wanted you to know that we are practicing reading, writing, and comparing 5-digit numbers. We played a fun game called "Number Top-It" to practice these skills. If you click on "Everyday Mathematics" to the left and get to chapter 5, then you can play it at home as well.
Speaking of our play practice, a note went home today telling your of our needs for props. Please send any props that you may have as soon as possible. Keep practicing those parts!
This afternoon we talked about the market in Tenochtitlan and how important it is to specialize. We acted out a little barter scene from the market as well. I'm trying to decide whether or not to do another take home test this week for social studies....leave your vote on the "comments" link.
Tonight's homework is to correct our spelling pretest (all the words are from our script).
Have a good evening.
Friday Highlights:
Enjoy your weekend! (Go Seahawks)
I think we have all the parts of our play assigned and its clear that many have been practicing at home. Tomorrow we're going to go down to the activity room and start blocking out the movements. It should prove to be an interesting morning. Tonight's homework should help our actors because each student is to write a paragraph about either their character or the meaning of the play (stationary was provided).
We took our math test this morning. I should have it corrected and returned by Friday. Look for it in your child's notebook this weekend.
This afternoon we watched Bill Nye talk about food webs and then took a test on our last several science lessons.
We ended the day practicing this week's spelling words.
Have a good night.
We're making progress on our play. It's also obvious that many of the students practiced their parts last night. Well done and keep it up. Tomorrow we'll practice our lines some more and hopefully on Thursday we'll start blocking it out.
Today in math we learned how to use a map scale and determined the distance between two places on a map. Your child should be able to show you how's its done with tonight's Home Link page.
This afternoon we made a food chain and discussed how a food web is a more accurate picture of a habitat. We learned that a food chain shows the direction the energy is going.
We ended the day learning the cursive "l" and "b".
Have a good night.
I hope everyone enjoyed their Thanksgiving vacation. I enjoyed mine again today with a fine turkey sandwich for lunch. 
In the classroom we focused on our play all day long. We assigned parts and are ready to start full blown practices tomorrow. Each student should know their part and should begin practicing tonight at home (a copy of our script should be in your child's notebook).
For spelling I pulled ten words right out of script for the students to learn. So tonight's homework (beside practicing their parts) is to correct their spelling pretest.
Have a good night.
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