January 13-17

    Well, we got a little more back into the swing of things this week.  Thursday marked the end of the first semester.  It is hard to believe how fast that time went.  We are making some changes to our schedule and we are excited to make these adjustments.  We are always working to make things better.  Just like we want the student to revise their work and make it better.  We as facilitators are striving to make our work better as well. 
     We kicked off our latest project this week and the students seem excited about it.  This project is based around the American Revolution.  The students will be learning about different event from that time period and they will ultimately be writing and performing a play together.  Not all students are excited about being actors so they will be the directors, stage crew etc.  This should be a lot of fun.  We plan to work with some PHS students during this process as well.  Stay tuned for more information about a trip to PHS. 
     We are starting a new grading period so that means a new Riverside Reads.  Thank you so much for helping to encourage your student in accomplishing this task.  It takes a village for sure!  We will continue to have Achieve 3000 each week as well.  Readers are leaders! 
    We have been working on fractions, decimals and percent this week in math.  This will tie up this quarter and our work with fractions.  We will continue to work on reviewing these topics but will be moving on to geometry for this third quarter! 
     Have a great week! 

Photos from our kick off

Knows and Need to Knows

Working on our flip charts in math

Well, that was a short week!

    We were starting to think that we were never going to be able to come back to school.  We hope everyone was safe and warm during that crazy weather!  As I write this it is almost 40 degrees and last week at this time is was -4 and dropping!  Crazy, but I guess it is winter in Indiana!  We will let you know for sure on the make-up days as soon as we know for sure.  We have had no official word on any of the days we have to make up yet but expect to hear about them this week. 
     We have one more week of this first semester and Riverside Reads activities and charts are due on Thursday!  We hope with all of the extra time off all of the kids complete this requirement!  The students in grades K-8 will not have school on this coming Friday, January 17th.  This is a work day for teachers.  PHS students will have school! 
     Our planned kick off of our latest project will be Monday due to the weather and delays we did not want to do it without enough time!  We hope the students come home excited about it.  We will be doing some tweaking to our schedules at the start of the new semester.  We are trying to find the right fit for all of our facilitators and learners and we feel like a change at the semester is the best time!  
     No photos this week!  Sorry!  We will try and get back at it this week!  Have a great week!

Welcome 2014

     Happy New Year to all of our families!  We hope you have had a relaxing holiday season.  We had a very busy week before break.  We presented our latest projects to our first grade friends and to some fifth graders as well.  We loved that we had so many parents come and check them out as well.  The kids decided that they loved having the little ones here.  They were so excited to have them and the first graders had a great time with our kids.  Here are some photos of that day!

 

    We collected a great amount of things for our two families that we adopted for the holidays.  The students helped wrap the gifts and the families were very grateful and thankful when they received the baskets and gifts.  They were amazed at what we had provided for them.  We appreciate all the donations.

    We were able to have one last science investigation before break.  We were able to dissect owl  pellets.  The students were amazed at what was found inside these pellets.  Here are some photos from this investigation.

   To end our week, we had a fun time watching a movie and having a party with our home rooms.  We hope the students come back after this break ready to work hard and have a great end to their fifth grade year!