Thank you to all of the generous donors that contributed to our Donors Choose project that allowed us to go to the planetarium this week!  We learned more about moon phases and the seasons.  We were even able to see the stars during the day, and what the sky would look like in the future!

We made a model of the sun, moon, and earth revolving and a flip book of the seasons.  There will be a review page coming home next week, and a test on this unit next Friday.

In reading this week we took a closer look at our characters in our books we are reading.  First we looked at what motivates our characters.  In every book a character wants something, but obstacles get in their way, so they react or respond, and they have tools or resources to help them solve their problem.  We tried to identify all those things in our own books. (We call it Somebody wanted…But… So…)  We also looked at what the author emphasizes through detail or repetition. We then ask ourselves why he/she would do that.  What are they trying to get us to think about?  This action helps get our thinking and responses to our books at a more significant level.  Ask you child about the suitcase or the pink dress in Tiger Rising.

In writing this week we began drafting our realistic fiction stories.  We are following the story arcs we made last week and writing them one scene at a time.  We are only on scene 4 as we are working on having all the types of sentences in each scene, staying in past tense and in third person as we write.

In math we focused on subtracting larger numbers, especially when there are zeroes in the number.  We took the practice test today.  We will review more and take the test next week.

Congratulations to everyone who made posters and gave their speeches today for Student Council Representatives.  They all did a great job!  Unfortunately, we could only pick 4 of the 10 people running for the positions.  Congratulations to: Claire, Noa, Paige, and Ethan

I hope you had a chance to sign up for a parent – teacher conference.  Check your email for a link to the sign up site.  I look forward to talking with you soon about your child.

Important Dates

Wednesday and Thursday, October 11 and 12 – Parent Teacher Conferences

Thursday ad Friday, October 12 and 13 – 1/2 Days