Weekly Update

What's Happening This Week:

Friday afternoon was a bit chaotic with students failing to follow directions in a timely manner. As a result, students lost out on both Study Hall and Friday Fun Read. Instead, students were asked to READ Chapter 14 of Little Women this weekend. They do NOT need to complete the assignment in Google Classroom. We are working hard to learn that our actions directly effect the consequences handed out. They clean up/pack up much quicker when they are quiet, however, because they could not be quiet (and it was the vast majority of the class) cleaning up from working on group projects took over 15 minutes. Which trickled over into clean/pack for the end of the day Study Hall/Friday Fun Read also taking nearly 10 minutes. As a result, instead of reading Little Women together after group project work, they will need to complete this independently over the weekend. Students were made aware of the expectation earlier in the day and reminded multiple times both before clean up and during.

Important Upcoming Dates:

February 3-6 - NJHS Penny War

February 6 - First Friday Hat Day

February 6 - School Store

February 13 - Valentines Day parties (see separate Intermediate ParentSquare Post).

This week:

Chapter 6 - Chapter Practice will be completed Tuesday with the Chapter 6 assessment Wednesday, February 4th. We will begin Chapter 7 - Dividing Decimals on Thursday with the intention of completing this the week before Winter Break.

We will continue to work in small groups with Mrs. Minne and Mrs. Herman to work on coordinate plane as well as volume. Concepts worked on in small group will *NOT* be homework, unless students cannot stay on task.

We wrapped up Midsummer's Night Dream this week! Students absolutely rose to the challenge of reciting Puck's Speech! They ROCKED it! Drinks of choice will be provided to 15 students on Friday afternoon for reciting the full 16 line version! 12 of those 15 students recited BOTH the 16 AND 8 line versions! We celebrated that with a full size candy bar and they will be receiving extra credit also! These KIDS ROCK! Everyone did a fantastic job! I am soo proud of them!

We began our Reformation Unit on Thursday. This unit covers the reform of the Catholic Church and how the other branches of Christianity and Christian religions came to be. We will learn about Martin Luther, John Calvin, the Protestants and how they got their name. This unit will take us to the week before PT Conferences.

We will also continue reading Little Women as part of our Literature content. We unintentionally got behind planned schedule this week. Please disregard the assignment dates, students will have the correct assignment on the correct day in their planners each night.

This book is quite long, so we will be reading it for many weeks. I plan to try to watch the movie at the end if we have time.

Students should be prepared to present on their projects Tuesday and Wednesday this week! Presentations will take place each afternoon.

Investigating Matter will be our next Science unit. There are many fun experiments we can complete with this unit. It will take us to Winter Break.

New lists are current content based across subjects. Lists will only have 3 words. Students will be required to write each word with markings 4 times each, look up each word in the dictionary (writing down part of speech, page number and proper definition), and writing a sentence using each word correctly.

New lists will be posted to Parent Square.

Students will continue writing their informational research essay based on Westward Expansion before the Civil War. This will be an IN CLASS writing assignment. Students should have brainstormed their topic based on one of the chapters they were assigned. Students will write a 5 paragraph informational essay. Students will be asked to complete research using the CCA library as well as Hudson Public Library online resources to complete their essay individually.

Essays will be DUE Friday, February 6th! Please remind your students to use the provided class time wisely. Talking and distractions continue to eat up their work time.

2/3-5 - NJHS Penny War

2/6 - First Friday Hat Day ($2)

2/6 - School Store

2/12 - PTO Meeting

2/13 - Valentines Day breakfast (see separate post)

February 17-19 - Parent Teacher Conferences & Scholastic Book Fair (info to come Tuesday)

February 20 - 3-5th Grade Field Trip to Library

February 24-27 - Mid Winter Break - NO SCHOOL