Another Busy Week!

     These weeks are sure flying by!  It does not seem possible that we are almost through September!  Students will be making their first presentations to their classmates this next week on what they have found out about the impacts of festivals.  They have been working on this for awhile and we are excited to see what they come up with.  They will then move on to creating an advertisement for the Blueberry Festival and also writing a letter to the Blueberry Board about what they have found out and what their thoughts are on our current festival.  We can't wait to see what their thoughts after their research.
    On Friday, we were visited by more than twenty people from a school corporation in Iowa.  They were here to check out all of our PBL/New Tech schools to see what we are doing and to talk to the students and the facilitators.  Our students were very willing to talk to them when they came into the classrooms.  (This group does not lack on the willingness to talk at anytime!)  The group was very impressed with out students.
     On another positive note, we received a message from one of our speakers from two weeks ago that was very encouraging.  He said that he really appreciated our students, their behavior, their questions and their enthusiasm.  He could not believe that they were only in fifth grade.  We have had our bumps with starting a new school year with a new group but it was so nice to hear that someone outside of the school thinks that these kids are doing good things.  We shared this with the students this past week and we hope it encourages them as much as it does the four facilitators.
      We are working on long division in math and it is so hard to divide if you do not know your math facts.  Students who have not "passed" their facts assessments will be bringing home sets of flash cards.  Please encourage them to practice them as much as possible.  We are hand testing them to see if they truly know them and they are not counting on their fingers quickly.  If we can get them to know their facts automatically it will make math later so much easier.  Thanks for any help you can give.
     The ACT Aspire tests that were supposed to happen last week did not really happen.  We were able to give one of the tests before the suspended testing due to technical issues.  We will do one part this week as a trial of the system and then we will finish it the week after.  The students were very patient with this issue and we do appreciate that.
    Don't forget that students are to be ready each night for 30 mins and recording it on their reading calendars.  Also, Achieve 3000 needs to be completed each week.  Have a great week!