A Long-Short Week

     Wow, this was a short week but a busy one!   The kids were in a bit of a Blueberry overload on Tuesday!  They were a little tired and so were we! 
     This week we had two more speakers come in to talk to us about their role in the Blueberry Festival.  Mrs. Linda Atkins came in on Tuesday to talk to us about what it is like to live right next to the park during the festival.  She shared the positives and the negatives for her.  Then on Wednesday, Officer Mark Owen came in and shared what the Plymouth Police have to do for the festival.  He gave us lots of good information on what it takes to make the festival a success. 
     After our speakers, students had to write a letter detailing their opinion of whether or not the Blueberry Festival should stay or if something else should take its place.  These letters are now being used to make new groups for next week.  Students will work together to come up with something to either help make the festival better or something that can replace it.  We are excited to see what the students come up with. 
     We have been working on decimals in math class, comparing and rounding them has been our first task.  This week we will work on adding and subtracting them.  We are finally up and running with technology and students will have some of their assignments loaded onto Echo. 
      In Social Studies and Language Arts, we have been working on regions, latitude and longitude and the compass rose.  We have been working on reading non fiction articles that tie into these topics as well.  We have been working on reading strategies and have begun to work on Achieve 3000.  Students will have to have 2 Achieve Articles done this week with a 75% average.  We appreciate any encouragement you can give at home. 
       Students seem to be doing very well on their Riverside Reads sheet.  Students have to read four books and complete an activity for each book each nine weeks.  Please ask your child about this. 
      Mrs. Dennie has had a student teacher with her and she has started teaching some lessons in math this past week.  She is actually in a program called Co-Teaching where Mrs. Dennie is with her and does not ever release the class totally to her.  This is a new program at IUSB and we are happy to have Miss Marijke Kunnen here with us,  She is here for another four weeks before heading to another placement. 
     We hope you have had a great weekend and are ready for a full week!  As always, please let us know if there is anything we can do to help! 

 Miss Kunnen teaching a math lesson

 Mrs. Linda Atkins sharing with the students

 Officer Mark Owen talking to the class