Week of September 16-20

    Another full week is under our belts!  (Ask your kids if that is a simile or a metaphor!)  We have all been working hard, facilitators and learners (teachers and students).  The students gave their first presentations to their homerooms this week.  This is a big learning process for a lot of the students.  They all did things well and they all have things to work on.  We have been discussing these things together and the kids know that, "as good as we are we can always get better!"  We are very proud of them and the way they presented to their peers.  We will be asking for people to come in and watch future presentations and we hope a lot of you will be able to attend.  Students will present this year in a variety of ways and we know they will learn from each new experience.  Parents you are always welcome to come and check out what is going on in our classrooms.  Just shoot the homeroom teacher an email and we can tell you what time things are happening each day!
     We will be kicking off our next project on Monday.  We are all excited for this next project as this is totally new for all of us.  We hope your children are coming home excited about what we are doing here at school.
     Students have been finishing up this quarter's social studies content this past week and we will be starting on science this week.  We hope you hear a lot about the sun, moon and shadows in the next few weeks.  In language arts, we have been working a lot with simile's and metaphor's.  We also read an interesting article about Niagara Fall.  In math we have been working on multiplying whole numbers and the students learned a different way to multiply called the Lattice method.  They do not have to use this method but it is an option.  (It is how they multiply in China!)  In advanced math we have finally started into the 6th grade content and are working on multiplying and dividing decimals.
     Achieve 3000 and Riverside Reads are something students can always be working on!  Two Achieve articles each week at 75% or higher first try and four books on the Riverside Reads for each quarter.  Thanks for encouraging your children in both of these areas!
     We hope you have a great week!  Please let us know if we can help with anything!

Our Student Council Representatives for this year!