February

We completed puzzle 21 in math and Mrs. Betty Ott said that the students did a marvelous job teaching about their problem of the day, during Mrs. Schlechter's absence. Related to math, Mrs. Schlechter observed Mrs. Jennifer Miller in her math classroom on Wednesday.** C-Arts: "The Boy Who Did Not Know Fear" was read aloud and discussed. Treasure hunts are due next week, along with final draft of spelling stories from week 3-6 (we used our words from "Iggie" and vocabulary puzzle 11). We took our spelling test today. Science: We worked on our powerpoints for our science books that we read during February. We postponed our puzzle lesson #12 until next week. We started looking at our new FOSS kit, which is about the sun, moon, and stars. A purple letter came home about this FOSS unit of study!
 * Week 3-7
 * Social Studies: We read from our read shorty books for this unit. 4th grade is studying The West. 5th grade is reading about the Civil War. 6th grade is reading about the Persian Wars with the Greeks back in time! We completed our weekly s.s. assignment that accompanies our books, but we did not have to do a corner biography this week. (We worked on our reading powerpoints.)**

MATH: We had a pop quiz in math this week! Puzzle 20 has been completed and the future will tell of the results! The puzzles seem to be a cool tool for us! A testament to this includes comments made by one of our fourth graders who took the NAEP test. (The NAEP is an assessment given by our federal education administration at random to see if students are achieving.) This fourth grader said the NAEP math problems were concepts we have covered using our puzzles and class discussions! Yay! We're on the right track...
 * Week 3-6 DACS Testing Week!**

C-ARTS: NAEP Test for the 4th grade took place in the morning in Hermosa. 5th and 6th remained behind to work on their Iggie Projects. We will DACS test Wednesday and Thursday of this week! Spelling sentence dictation test was also on our plate today!

WEEK 3-5 MATH: **Puzzle 19 was literally in the spotlight!** We used our overhead to work out two puzzles before our "pop quiz" next week. We covered the same topics as we have the past three weeks. We reviewed and applied. Score! :)

C-ARTS: "Iggie" was introduced to us this week, as we launched a new two week unit. We have improved how we develop our vocabulary with our new approach to whole class reading lessons. Students are in charge of alphabetizing their list of spelling words (reading vocabulary) while writing for Cursive Club, and then they have to research two words in dictionary. They record the part of speech, definition, and possible synonyms and antonyms. By discussing our findings with the class, we talk more about our vocabulary, see? Treasure Hunt "Iggie" will be due next week, which includes a vocabulary puzzle, a character poster, and the skill pages!

SOCIAL STUDIES: Cowboys and barbed wire were the central theme for 4th grade's continued study of the southwest... which we stretched up into the western region too. Mr. Madison's War is the nickname for the War of 1812, or so we learned in the 5th grade history. The famous Tecumseh died in battle against man, who later became president: Henry Harrison. Another president also made a name for himself during this war: Andrew Jackson! Our 6th grade just happened to cruise the Mediterranean Sea and landed on Greece and the island of Crete. The Minoan Civilization came before the Greeks, and Morgan researched about someone who dug up cool artifacts on Crete. The artifacts belong to the Minoans.

SCIENCE: Today, we had our Valentine's Day party as our science lab. ha ha However, the steps that led us there: 1. S.S. Project of the Week had to be complete. 2. Corner Biographies had to be finished. 3. Science Puzzle 11: Erosion, Ladybugs, and Natural Disasters as our topics, had to be in. 4. Weekend Homework discussed: reading log, study spelling words, and read our green S.S. shorty.

Next week, NAEP testing takes place for 4th grade and DACS testing for all of us! Yes, we will be in week 6 of this quarter! Wow!

WEEK 3-4 MATH: **Puzzle 18 was in the spotlight!** Concepts covering area, perimeter, finding the pattern, ratios, and approximate numbers were topics of discussion. Students need to work on rounding to friendly numbers or using approximate numbers that are easy to mentally figure out. C-ARTS: We had an excellent writing workshop on how to write and score our 6-hat papers. Next week, students will continue to help each in this process. The challenge is to write using exciting transitions! I think I owe soda pop to three students already. SOCIAL STUDIES: We launched new units for our three week cycle. 4th grade is in the southwest now as they tour our ol' USA. 5th grade is studying post-revolutionary war time and how our country had to establish a fair government. 6th grade is backing up and studying some more about the Greeks. We studied somewhat about them at the beginning of the school year, but we have a better method now. We understood more about ancient China and India than we did about our earlier units about Mesopotamia, Roman, and Greece. SCIENCE: We continued with our studies in Puzzlewise with Isaac Newton, prisms, soundwaves, drums, ect. Our highlight of the week though was Tracy Bowman's presentation that included many activities including how to use a stethoscope and a lab using phenol red test to see "who was infected." Thank you, Tracy! Special people at home... we appreciate your expertise! We are always looking for experts to come in share what they know! :)