May 14 Make Up PE @ 12:30
May 14 O&A to Fire Station
May 16 Last Day of Tree House
May 19 Last Library Visit - Chaperones Needed!
May 26 No School
May 30 All School Meeting (Plovers will present)
June 4 Celebrations of Learning
June 5 Hagg Lake Adventure Day - Chaperones Needed!
June 6 Talent Show
Homework Due Thursday, May 15th - More details posted on the Homework Page
1. Read for at least 30 minutes per day.
* No reading response letter or math practice pages due this week
2. Bring in $5-$10 donation for Hagg Lake Adventure (this will go toward equipment rental from Pacific Outback and Adventures Without Limits)
3. As needed, work on Oregon Trail writing and About The Author
Upcoming Out and Abouts
This week, we have two Out and Abouts for our outdoor skills and emergency preparedness unit! On Wednesday (not our usual Out & About day), we will visit the Fire Station to learn about staying safe in a fire and calling 911. On Thursday, we will participate in a Red Cross disaster preparedness workshop specially designed for children. Please sign up on VolunteerSpot if you would like to join us!
Volunteer Opportunities - Sign up on our VolunteerSpot page: http://vols.pt/drMimF
We have several opportunities for parents to join us on upcoming Out & Abouts. The biggest need for chaperones will be on Thursday, June 5th when we join the Puffins for a day of canoeing and other outdoor adventures at Hagg Lake! Please check out VolunteerSpot for more chaperone information and sign up if you're able to accompany us!
Words Words Words!
The students' job is to look for these words in their reading or listen for them in conversation. If they find one of our words, they should record the sentence or bring the book with them to Morning Meeting. Try using these words at home and see if your Plover notices!
1. Announcement
2. Distant
3. Admit
4. Progress
5. Decision
6. Council
7. Instinctively
8. Exhausted
Math Notes
Last week in Third Grade Math, we talked some more about test-taking strategies and continued to review our major concepts from this year - addition and subtraction with re-grouping, reading graphs and charts, geometry, multiplication story problems and representing fractions. We also practiced a new strategy for solving a multi-step story problem - make a table or chart. To review geometry vocabulary, we drew and labeled creatures made out of polygons with chalk on the blacktop outside.
Third graders will begin testing on Wednesday, May 14. Testing is administered in the computer lab in short sessions, and students have the opportunity to work on the same test over multiple sessions so they can work at their own pace. Please help support your third grader by: encouraging them to do their best, making sure they eat breakfast and bring a snack, and helping them get plenty of sleep. If you have any questions or concerns about the state math test, please contact Laura at [email protected].
In preparation for this week's OAKS Math Test, 4th graders continued their work with decimals. We focused on adding and subtracting decimals using the standard algorithm as well as a decimal array. Fourth grade mathematicians also spent considerable time reviewing math vocabulary. The fourth grade mathematicians are scheduled to begin the OAKS Math Test on Monday May 12 between 9:30-10:30. If you have any questions or concerns about your mathematicians and "The Test", please let Becky know ASAP ([email protected]).
Help Name Our Bookstore!
We are still trying to decide on a name for our free bookstore. Jacob, McKenzi and Daphne helped come up with a list of possible names by asking classmates for ideas and looking on the internet. The class voted on 8 possible names and we've narrowed it down to the top 4 choices. Now, we are asking you to help us make the final decision! Please vote for your favorite name by Wednesday, May 14th at 9 AM.
Weekly Review
We began our outdoor skills and emergency preparedness unit last week with a trip to Tom McCall Forest. Volunteers and staff from Pacific Outback taught the students how to set up a tarp and how to tie a few fun knots! The purpose of this unit is to build off the students' interest in survival and adventure from studying Native Americans, Lewis & Clark and Oregon Trail, and to teach them some skills that would be useful in real life emergencies. The class started by brainstorming answers to two questions: "What kinds of accidents and emergencies could someone face in daily life" and "what kinds of dangerous situations could someone face outdoors or in the wilderness?" From there, we came up with a list of things they would like to learn about taking care of themselves and their families in an emergency or in the wilderness. They had a lot of great ideas and enthusiasm!
We continued working on our Oregon Trail writing last week and most students have completed the introduction and body sections of their stories. We will be working on the endings and About The Author pages this week. Some students will need to work on their writing at home if they are not able to finish it in class, which is why I did not assign a reading response letter this week. If you would like to see a sample of a completed story, please click here (keep in mind that this is a final, edited copy, not a rough draft). All writing that students take home MUST be returned to school DAILY; students will be working on their rough drafts in class every day.
In addition to writing a story from the perspective of a child traveling the Oregon Trail, students have been considering the impact of westward expansion from the perspective of Native Americans. Specifically, we are focusing on the perspective of the tribes that lived along the Columbia River and were forced to move when the Grand Coulee Dam and the Dalles Dam were built, flooding their villages. We read A River Lost by Lynn Bragg and watched a short documentary called See Through The Water about Celilo Falls and the Dalles Dam (more information available from Oregon Historical Society). Students have been contributing artwork, writing and poems to a class bulletin board to help express what they've learned about Celilo Falls and the people who lived there.
Communication
Please contact me with any questions or concerns. Parents and students can e-mail me at [email protected]. You can also leave a voice message on the class phone, come into the classroom before or after school, or call me before 8PM at home.