Moving Along

Today was a busy day as is going to be this week. We are at the end of section 1 in our Montana History Journal so students will test on it on Wednesday. Tomorrow they will fill out a study guide using their journals to help them study tomorrow night at home. This guide matches the test. Today, we talked about how many mountain ranges are in Montana. If your child can tell you, write that number in the planner for free money. On Friday we will be ready for our Chapter 1 math test over all the skills we have done in this unit and then some extras. These skills will be continually practiced throughout the year to keep them refreshed. It is not a test and then done with them kind of deal. In Social Studies, we are going to do some map exercises that will get us ready to start into our first section of the U.S. which will be the Northeast. I will explain that more when we get there. Today in Language/writing we made these stoplight cards that are going to be used as a tool throughout the year to help us write some dynamic paragraphs. After making them today, the students in my reading started their paragraphs and WOW-I am impressed. They had to write about the chapter they read in their group for heritage. They are making collages to go with these and then they will share them with the class on Wednesday. Great way to learn lots more about heritage, but only reading one sections. What a great model of TEAMWORK!!!! Then on Thursday, they will be working in their small groups with the reading of realistic fiction. They will be taking the strategies of predicting, questioning, and connecting and implying them to what they read. Skills that we will be working on are: Author's purpose, inferencing, sequencing events, and figurative language. As you can see, we are learning lots of new things. In Science, we will finish hurricanes on Wednesday with a little quiz that goes with a book that I will read to them about hurricanes. Lots of the info. in the book, we have already discussed so if they have been paying attention and do when I read the book, this should not be a problem. Then in Science, we are going to do a small unit on wildfires as part of our weather unit. That one will surely hit home won't it. I just hope that these will get under control for all those whose lives are impacted. In Character Education, we are finishing up and then they are ready to make their own character shields. In order to do this, they will need a piece of cardboard at least 15 inches x 15 inches. They will be writing on a paper shield how they are going to use each of the traits at school. This goes along with what Rusty talked about last week and that is EQ-emotional quotient. Students are going to work hard to raise their at least 100 points this year and it will involve them using these character triats. We will cover the cardboard with tin foil and then mount the paper shield onto the cardboard. I will be taking their pictures and putting them on there. They are going to be so cool and I can't wait for you to see them on display in the hall. So please send in the piece of cardboard by Wednesday. Thank you. Have a great night.