Have a wonderful weekend! No homework assigned (typically our vocab./spelling practice will be Monday-Thursday). It was a fast Friday today: we did our weekly testing, worked in groups to show our learning on families in Spanish, and enjoyed some free time we earned.

Last night's homework was a little flawed. It didn't have a list of our words on it and many students struggled to complete it. It will not be due until next week and students will have some class time with thier vocab journals to complete it.

Teachers took part in a training on the ALEKS online program for math this afternoon. It seems to be a really effective computer resource. One of the teachers at our school said her children moved up two grade levels this summer doing the program. If your student needs extra math help and you would like to order it through the school, it is just $39 for the year. Typically the program costs $20 a month. I know I don't teach math, but I thought I would share because many parents ask what they can do to help students with math.

Thursday

L.A.-Today we did some work with Haiku and created comic strips using onomatopoeia. We did a practice test for our name spelling test tomorrow. Many kids got 100% or close to it, which is awesome! I think it is so important all of the students know the kids in their class. There is nothing more sad than being called "hey you" 3/4 of the way through a school year. Those with 100% will do an alternate activity-- rather than take the test. Don't forget to review tonight if you missed any on the practice test today. :) Our homework was a crossword puzzle with all our poetry terminology in it. A reading log will be distributed tomorrow that will help students record reading time the last week of August and through the month of September.

Science- We learned about common traits and decided what traits each student exhibited. We used the information to complete a class survey. Next week we will learn how to find the percentage of students in each category and create a graph with the information.

Introductory Post

It is my hope that this blog can serve as a communication tool for our class. Students may ask questions about assignments and the blog will immediately send an email to me, so that I may reply as soon as possible. Students and parents may also see a reminder about homework and/or projects. Furthermore, I am excited to give students a more public venue to share some of thier writing. Stay tuned for pictures!

It is a little late for this evening, but our homework for tonight was a multiple choice style review of some of the poetry terms we have learned this week. We will correct it in class tomorrow so that we can see which concepts are still unclear. The terminology is very useful because all terms are poetic devices that will make student poetry wonderful.

Today we did some grammar review, looked at pictures of common dominant and recessive traits/began a class survey about our heredity, did our first free write, and discussed some poetic devices which will help students to write thier Haiku poems.