It was so nice to see all of you last week for conferences and discuss your child's progress during the first trimester! Know that I am available to you at any time throughout the school year should we need to continue conversations or discuss any new issues. I've grown so fond of all of your children, and consider it a great privilege to teach them every day...and I so appreciate all the support I receive from each of you at home! Thank you!
Important Dates
Band Concert ~ Monday, December 8th ~ 7:00pm
See Mrs. Kuzmanoff's email for details about the concert. Please have them here for band rehearsal at 8:10am, and back at school before 7:00pm for the concert wearing black bottoms (pants/skirt) and shoes with a white shirt.
Robert Crown Michael - Puberty Education for Boys ~ Tuesday, December 9th ~ 7:00pm ~ Please remember to send in the permission slip and $8 if you have not done so already.
This program is for boys and an adult family member. The identical program will be presented to our students during the day in the spring with the girls' Linda program. This offering is made by the PTA to allow parents to participate in the program with their child.
The Michael Program allows pre-adolescent boys to learn about changes they will experience during puberty. The “boys-only” format encourages open discussion about questions that arise during the onset of puberty. We discuss the physical and emotional changes that occur during puberty and also compare the female and male reproductive anatomy. Robert Crown educators address secondary physical changes such as voice change, increased production of sweat and oil, acne, and the growth of body hair, as well nocturnal emissions and spontaneous erections.
Each participant takes home a comprehensive booklet as a resource. Booklets are available in English and Spanish.
Program Goals:
Students will…
Students will…
- Increase knowledge about human anatomy, the changes which occur during puberty, and the reasons for these changes.
- Understand that the changes of puberty are a normal part of human development and will increase their comfort for discussing this topic with trusted adults.
- Learn skills to take care of their bodies as they experience the changes of puberty.
Science Behind Drugs ~Thursday, December 11th ~ Please remember to send in the permission slip if you have not done so already.
Kids face tough decisions, especially regarding the issue of drug use. RCC’s “Science Behind Drugs and Prevention” program helps kids make healthy choices and lead a drug-free life. The program uses research-proven effective, interactive teaching methods. The neurological effects of drug addiction are demonstrated using the “Reward Pathway” display in the transparent brain model. Addiction is defined and the underlying neurological response to drugs that leads to addiction. This class also includes information about prevention addiction to prescription pain medications and heroin.
Program Goals:
Students will…
Students will…
- Increase knowledge about drugs and their effects on total wellness (physical, mental social, emotional) with intense focus on neuroscience.
- Feel empowered to take personal responsibility for increasing their total wellness and increase disapproval of alcohol and other drug use.
- Develop strategies/tools to make healthy decisions and explore alternatives to alcohol, tobacco, and other drug use/abuse.
Revolutionary War Presentation ~ Monday, December 15th ~ Please remember to send in the permission slip and $5 if you have not done so already.
This is an interactive presentation about the Battle of Cowpens. Students will learn the different war strategies used by the British and Continental army, then have a chance to participate in a re-enactment of the battle. Please have your child wear BLUE to school that day, as our class will be representing the Continental Army.
What's Happening in the Classroom
Math
We've been working in Unit 5 with our focus on fractions, decimals, and percents. This is a longer unit that will take us all the way until break. We will be taking the Unit 5 Assessment on Friday, December 19th. Please encourage your child to be practicing their skills on Khan Academy at home. They are assigned appropriate "recommendations" that align to our unit. Your child works on these recommendations each day during our math hour so they should be able to access the appropriate skills at home. Typically, students have time to master these skills during the math hour, but if a student is struggling to understand the concept, they may need more time to practice their skills at home. Their current Common Core Packet will be due the first day back from winter break, Monday, January 5th.
Social Studies
We began the Revolutionary War unit this week with an exciting tug-of-war game in our room! They had such a great time with this activity - it was hard to contain their excitement when I told them we were going to have a tug-of-war game!! We used this simulation to draw some comparisons to the strategies used in the Revolutionary War by both the British and the Continental Army. The game started with all the larger students on the red side, representing the large and well-trained British Army; and some of the smaller students on the blue side, representing the smaller and untrained Continental Army. It looked as if the red team was going to crush the blue team. However, after several rule changes, the Continental Army ended up defeated the British army, much to the surprise of the larger red team! Ask your child to explain the rule changes, and the correlation to the war strategies - this will help to prepare them for the unit assessment, scheduled for Friday, December 12th. They should also prepare for this assessment by re-reading the chapter, reviewing the unit organizer, and taking the online History Alive assessment.
Reading
This week we studied point of view in literature as we read about cowboys and cowgirls in the American West. Since this week ended our 2nd unit in Treasures, we would typically be taking a break from Treasures this week to prepare for our Unit Assessment; however, we will be moving on to Unit 3 Week 1 next week as it ties in nicely with our Revolutionary War unit. We will continue our literature study on point of view and perspective as they read a number of realisic fiction stories about the Revolutionary War. They will also read 3 different accounts of Paul Revere's ride and compare information across genres - one will be a reader's theater written by a British author, Paul Revere's Midnight Ride, the second will be the famous poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere, and the third will be a non-fiction re-telling of the events, A Shot Heard Around the World. Students typically really enjoying reading about the same event across different genres of text, so I expect them to be quite engaged in this unit. Finally, students will read 3 non-fiction books about different battles from the Revolutionary War and compare and contrast the events of the battles while focusing on sequence as a non-fiction internal text structure.
On Monday, students were assigned a Conflict Scrapbook - due Friday, 12/19 based on their recent novel reading of My Brother Sam is Dead. You can find all the details about this project on Edmodo. Students will be creating a scrapbook with 4 different entries that address the four major types of conflict found in literature: a letter from one character to another (character vs character conflict); a diary entry (character vs self conflict), a newspaper article (character vs society conflict); and an illustration (character vs nature conflict). They will be given some time to work on this project in class, but it is primarily to be completed at home. We have discussed planning for a larger project and how to schedule their time wisely, and I do continue to check in on with them, giving them guidelines for where they should be in their project. Please take some time to check in with your child's progress on this project. You can support them by setting up a calendar with deadlines for different pieces of the project.
Writing
We have been working on research and content area during our writing time using the text George vs George, a great resource for looking at the different perspectives of George Washington and King George during the Revolutionary War. We have focused on guided note-taking strategies for the past two weeks. Our focus in the upcoming week will be to have students come up with a research question they have around the topic of the Revolutionary War and allow them some independent time to research the answer to their questions. During the final week before break, all of the research and work they have done during the Revolutionary War will culminate into an editorial. Students will choose an issue, take a position, and write an editorial that might have appeared in a newspaper in one of the colonies at the time of the war. While the editorial will primarily be written in class, you may see them working on it at home if they have band or they fall behind in the writing. Final editorials are due on Friday, December 19th.
Have you had enough of the Revolutionary War yet?? While the students have been HIGHLY engaged in this unit (I will admit that I just love it as well!), we will be saying goodbye to the Revolutionary War as we leave for Winter Break.
Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same. ~ Ronald Reagan
Cheers,
Theresa Fowler
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