Looks Like Winter has Arrived!

     It sure is cold out there tonight!  It is really hard to believe we are only two weeks away from winter break!  Christmas will be here before we know it!  We are very excited and proud of the kids for their enthusiasm with our adopt a family project and our soldier project.  You are raising very caring kids and we are very excited to see how this project ends up!  Due dates on things are:  Soldier project items need to be here by Friday, December 13 and family items need to be here by Monday, December 16.  We will be packaging up items to mail and wrapping items to deliver!  This is such a good lesson to all of us at this time of the year. 
     We are finishing up our Native American and Explorer project this week, weather permitting!  We are hoping all things fall into place and our first grade friends come to visit us on Friday.  We would love to have any of you come to visit as well.  We will send out exact times as soon as we here for sure when the first graders are coming to visit.  If you are interested in coming to visit if you would down load the LayAr app onto your mobile device (the free version is all you need) that would be helpful and then you will be able to see the "Augmented Reality" the students have created.  As always with a new app we are a little nervous but we have been working with Mrs. Holland and we have seen some great things so far!  So, look for an email early this week with times we will be available to have visitors come see our virtual LayAr musuem! 
    All of the lizards have found their homes and we will be taking a break from science to concentrate on social studies so that we are ready for our next project.  We learned a lesson running the lizards and our Native American/Explorer projects at the same time and we will not be doing that again if we can help it.  We will separate these next time.  Just like the learners we as facilitators are learning as we go and we cannot be afraid to change things that are not working and learn from challenges!  The students did enjoy the lizards and they learned about consumers and producers! 
     We are hoping to finish up the trade books we are reading soon!  We have been working on using transition words in our writing and we will be taking a writing prompt this week to see how we have been doing.  Just a reminder that this grading period ends two weeks after we get back from winter break.  Students need to have their four books read and their reviews written by then to complete their Riverside Reads requirement.  They must have this accomplished to be invited to the Roster party for the quarter!  Also, weekly Achieve 3000 is a requirement that they must complete at least two articles at a goal of 75% and two thought questions!  This program really helps prepare them for the writing they will have to do later and on the ISTEP.  This year the writing portion of the ISTEP will be online so typing paragraphs on the computer will really help them.
     In math this week we worked on reading decimals and fractions on a number line in fifth grade math and in advanced math we working on ratio and rate.  We keep working on our facts daily and improvement is being seen! 
     We hope you have a great week!  Stay warm! 

Photos from the week!