Team Hyper Space: Winter . . . . . . I guess it is December in Indiana

   Well, that sure was a winter storm wasn't it? This past week was very busy and with a two hour delay in there it made it all the more crazy! We have been very proud of the students during this current project! They have worked very hard at each of the benchmarks we have set for them. The culmination of all this work has been their creations using the Layar App. We have been very excited to see their creativity in the way their group has decided to use this piece of technology! We hope that some of you will be able to join us anytime Monday, December 16th from 12:30-2:30. Please remember if you have a mobile device to download the Layar App so that you can use it as we only have 20 devices available here.
     We had a practice walk through and worked on our last minute technology bugs on Friday and we were so impressed with the way the students handled themselves. Most of them are really starting to "get it" in terms of how this PBL process works. We had some visitors and they were impressed with the way the students explained what was happening. It is hard to believe that they are in fifth grade sometimes, (then we go to recess and we remember they are in 5th grade!)
     We finished up our adopt a soldier project on Friday and are mailing a large package on Monday. The cards the students made were great and we hope we hear back from them in the new year! We are finishing up our collection for our two adopted families tomorrow, Monday. We have quite a bit donated already and we hope on Monday we fill in the gaps. We will be wrapping all of these things Tuesday and will deliver them on Wednesday. We hope the students enjoy making someone else happy! They have sure been excited when they bring in their donations, whether it is a few cans of vegetables or an outfit they can't wait to show us and have us mark it down.
     We had our first Rocket Night of the year on Thursday evening and it was very well attended by our team! It is always fun to see the students outside of the regular school day! As a school we collected eight laundry baskets full of food for the food pantry! Other than the craziness of pick up it was a great night!
     We will be finishing up things this week in all of our areas. The novels the students are reading should be finished this week. We will be taking a common assessment on the Explorers and Native Americans. We will take a common assessment on units of measure in math and we will have a little science exploration as well!
    Don't forget that Riverside Reads is due January 16th as that is the last day of this grading period. That means students have an extra two weeks due to winter break! We are hoping for 100% of our students to complete this task this quarter! They are all capable! Also, please help remind them that they have two Achieve 3000 articles due each week!
    Stay warm and we hope to see many of you tomorrow for our Gallery Walk!

Making Gallon Guys in Math Class