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As you can see, we had a great science lesson learning the principles of dry ice vs. ordinary ice. We found out that dry ice is actually carbon dioxide and that when water is added to it, it really bubbles. It does not melt because it is not a liquid, but rather it evaporates when left out untouched. We also found out that it can get very cold. We had thermometer readings of 20 degrees. BRRRR!! I forgot to take my camera to the detention center so I have no photos of that so hopefully your child filled you in on the great trip we had and that it is a place we never want to go back to. I think it made quite an impact. Thank you so much to those of you that donated to our bake sale. We so so appreciate your efforts. Ask your child about the fun Halloween story we listened to today about trick-or-treating. It was quite hilarious!! Enjoy your day and have a very safe Halloween.

Lots to Say

HI This is going to be a quick post as I have lots to say and share and very little time to do it with conferences and all. We had a very good field trip to the detention center today. Please have a dinnertime table discussion about it and let your child fill you in on what they saw and what made a big impact on them. Science today was fun. We did some fun activities with dry ice. Ask your child what dry ice is and what we did with it. I will post pics of this when I get more time. Tomorrow is early out at 12:00. Tomorrow is also our Bake Sale. Please help us out. Thank you. Also get those library books brought back as there is Library tomorrow. Have a great night and I hope you have your Halloween costume ready. Only one more night before the fun. Cya tomorrow.

Report Cards Went Home Today

Yes, report cards went home today and I am pleased to announce that overall the grades in Room 6 were very good. Great Job Team Hankins and continue to work hard and strive to be the BEST you can be!!! Let make the 2nd Quarter even better. We have a program here at Bitterroot called BUG Club which means to "bring up grades". Students who maintain or bring their first quarter grades up by the end of second quarter are recognized at an assembly at the end of 2nd quarter. Tomorrow is our field trip to the detention center. Again any parents that are going, you are welcome to ride the bus until it is full and when it is, you can follow in your own vehicle. If you drive yourself, be there by 9:00. Thank you. Drug Free packets were finished in class today. Take some time to go over these with your child and discuss other choices and things to do other than drugs. If you do, write packet in the planner for free money. Conferences begin tomorrow. I posted everyone's time on the side of the blog as another reminder. Reminder: Wed., Thurs, and Friday are Early Out days with 12:00 dismissal. Also on Wednesday is our Bake Sale. Please help us in this endeavor. Everything will sell for 50 cents. Raindrop stories: If your child didn't finish writing the final copy in school today, they are homework. Color some of the top page to give it some color and then have it in order for me to staple tomorrow to get it ready for hallway display. Have a great night and cya tomorrow.

Hope you all are enjoying your weekend. This week is going to be a busy short week. As you know, it is Parent-Teacher Conference time so we will be having 12:00 dismissal on Wed. Thurs. and Friday. I look forward to visiting with each of you at your scheduled conference time. Tuesday is our field trip to the Detention Center. We will be leaving at 8:40 and returning by 11:30. If you wish to go along, you can ride the bus if there is room or just plan on meeting us there at 9:00. We have been preparing the kids for this trip this past week and really focusing on the fact that these are not bad people, they just made bad choices and they heard this from our guest speakers this past week also. On Friday, our team building activity was playing the game of Jenga. It fit perfectly into drug free week because one of our guest speakers made an analogy to the game. He referred to taking drugs and how making bad choices slowly destroys your life and then all of a sudden it comes crashing down just like when you remove pieces of the game and then all of a sudden it is too weak to stand alone and it too comes crashing down just like our bodies. The kids enjoyed the game and I then it was a good visual for them also. In Science this week we will write our final copies of our raindrop stories so I can get them hung up in the hall for conferences. In math, we will continue with multiplication and get into 2 digit x 2 digit. In Social studies, we will jump back into our Montana History for awhile. In reading, we are in Unit 3 which goes into the NE and mid-atlantic states and now this week we have some non-fiction to read in our small groups related to those states. Then after that we will be starting small group book clubs for the fiction piece of our reading. With this being the end of the 1st quarter, students will have an opportunity to spend any extra money they have and then we will start over with a $100 for this next quarter. Some of their extra money will be used on Tuesday afternoon for an extra special buy in to do some science related Halloween fun with both 4th grades. Then any left after that, they can spend on Wednesday morning. Speaking of Wednesday, it is our 4th Grade Bake Sale. I hope all of you will help out with this endeavor. Thank you. We will be selling it at the 12:00 dismissal. Report cards will be coming home tomorrow so that gives you time to look them over before your conference time. Congratulations to Ethan, the recipient of the purple hand cookie. The students had many kind words for Ethan focusing on the fact that he is always so kind, caring, encouraging, and helpful towards others. Also, we enjoyed seeing Bailey's pics and hearing about him as our student of the week. Have a great rest of the weekend.

Drugs Stink-Wear Pink

Wow-there sure was a lot of pink around today. I loved seeing all the support for "Drugs Stink-Wear Pink"!! Our day started out today with students from Senior High that are going through treatment at Rimrock Foundation talking about their drug addictions. Three out of the four started at age 9 & 10. The 4th got a start during his mother's pregnancy. Yes, she did marijuana while she was pregnant and then when he was born she and her friends thought it was funny to blow marijuana smoke into his face as a baby and toddler. As you can see, he was high at a very young age. How sad-I can't even imagine. He said that doing drugs is the only time he felt normal. When asked how he stopped, he said he did it himself. What a touching story. The 4 of them had a very powerful message and drove home the message that you do drugs to "fit" in, but in the end you're the one alone and you go looking for your "old" friends. I hope these stories help you see why we start these discussions, guest speakers, and field trips in 4th grade. Hopefully in later years your child will remember those guest speakers from 4th grade. It is so worth it to me. Please stay involved with your child and their lives so you know what they are up to. Tomorrow is our NE states and capitals test. Also raindrop people are due tomorrow. We will start rewriting the stories here tomorrow now that they are edited. Thank you. Tomorrow is our field trip to ABT. We leave at 11:50 and return by 2:00. Have a great night and enjoy spending time with your family.

Quick Post-Meeting Day!

Just a quick post as I have a meeting today. The main highlight of the day was the movie we watched for drug free week. We had a great discussion after the movie on how the drug addiction not only affects the drug addict, but also the many other people in his/her life. Have a discussion about who and how many lives were affected. If you have a good talk about the movie, write movie in the planner. Tomorrow we have young adults coming to us from the Rimrock Foundation. Many of these people are high school students who have gone through treatment. Very powerful. Also, tomorrow is pink day. "Drugs Stink-Wear Pink"!! Let's pack Bitterroot School in pink. Last section of raindrop stories today. It is on collection to wrap up the water cycle. Thank you so much for editing your child's story as I couldn't have done it without you. We will start writing our final copies on Thursday and Friday. These will be on display at Parent Teacher Conferences next week. Thank you to those of you that returned the conference slips. If you didn't today, please do so tomorrow. Thank you Remember on Friday is the PTA Pumpkin Patch Party from 6:30-8:00. Remember to study those states and capitals as the test is on Friday. Have a great night.

Yummy!! Chocolate!!

Today was a busy day. We started off with the S.A.D.D.(Students Against Destructive Decisions) students from Skyview here to talk to us about making positive choices. They talked about all the clubs and activities you can get involved in at school rather than doing drugs that can destruct your body and decisions you make. Have your child about the candy activity they did and if they can tell you, write SADD in the planner. Then we went to the gym for an assembly on Student Stranger Safety. They were from the Tae Kwon Do center and taught the kids what to do if a stranger approaches you using your arms and voice. Have your child demonstrate this for you. They too did a great job. In Social Studies today we continued our tour of the Northeast. We learned about how locks in a canal work and we toured the Hershey Chocolate Factory. Have your child tell you how the locks work and what kind of candy treat we got today and if they can, write NE in the planner. Raindrop stories are almost complete. Tonight they are to write the piece on precipitation. Thank you again parents for editing these. Tomorrow night will be the final night. We decided that the raindrop people projects will be due on Friday. Tomorrow is our movie day for drug free week. Also tomorrow is slippers day. "Don't let drugs slip you up"-wear slippers. Parent Teacher Conference slips went home today with the day and time you are scheduled to come. Check these over and mark your calendars, then cut off the bottom portion and return to school with your child. Those returned tomorrow earn free money. Thank you. Tomorrow is Library so get those books returned. Have a great night.

Happy Monday

Hi there-great to be back and we had a great day. Today was the first day of Red Ribbon Week and we had a very special guest. We had Agent Dunlap who works undercover with the government enforcing drug laws and trying to catch illegal drug users. Therefore, the reason no picture of him on the blog. He told us about how Drug Free Week started and what he does as an agent. If your child can tell you why we celebrate this week and what happened to that person, write that person's name in the planner and if they can tell you what age was the youngest person Agent Dunlap caught with drugs, write that age in the planner. The kids were so enthralled with his presentation and learned a lot. Tomorrow, we have students from Skyview coming in to talk about making positive choices rather than doing drugs. Tomorrow is also the day we will be wearing mustaches. These will be provided by our Kelso's Choice Club so students don't have to bring their own unless they want to. We also started multiplication with 2 digit x 1 digit. Some students had difficulty with this skill as they are struggling with their multiplication facts. So it is showing me that they need to dig out those flash cards and practice practice so they don't get too far behind. Water Cycle Stories: Today is Part 3-the condensation stage. Thank you for editing them and helping your child's story to make sense. Continue this process this tonight's piece too. Remember to be working on your raindrop figures. The ones we have already are looking good. Remember that our Northeast states and capitals test is on Friday, October 26th. Also, on Friday is the PTA sponsored Pumpkin Patch Party from 6:30-8:00. Students can earn free money for attending with a parent. Reminder slips came home today from the PTA about the fundraiser envelopes. Please return those to us within the next 2 days. Thank you. Have a great night.

Short Post Today

Hi there- This is going to be a short post today as I have a meeting this afternoon. First of all, great job on the Water Cycle story introductions. There are some fun characters and locations. Thank you to those who edited your child's writing. This weekend they have the evaporation portion to work on. Again, see my model one and the students are then to write the evaporation part. Please edit this portion also. Thank you. So when they return to school on Monday, all students need to have the introduction and evaporation parts finished. Drug Free Week is October 22-26. Remember to look on the packet that went home to see what the dress up days are. For those of you that aren't sure where it is: These are the days: Monday-"Saying No to Drugs is no Sweat". Wear sweats. Tuesday: "Don't be a sucker, we mustache you not to do drugs" Wear a mustache to school. Wednesday: "Give drugs the slip". Wear slippers to school. Thursday: "Drugs stink-wear pink". Wear lots of pink. Friday: "Don't be crazy. Just say NO to drugs". Wear crazy socks. Friday is also field trip day to ABT. Our morning meetings this week will be focused around Drug Free Week. Students will get a packet that we will work on throughout the week and Rusty's show will also focus on Being Drug Free. In Math, we will be starting to work more in depth on multiplication and division so take some time over this break to practice those facts. It will be very important for them to know them to successfully move along at the pace we are going to be going. We will finish our tour of the NE and take our states and capitals test on Friday, October 26th. Have a great break and enjoy some R&R.

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As you can see, we had a great field trip to the NILE!! Students were so well behaved and I was so proud of them. Thank you to Nikki Seville for going as our chaperone. You were awesome!! Have your child tell you about 3 of the things they learned today and write them in the planner for free money. Before we left today, we did a scavenger hunt in Science learning some new fun weather facts. We are now done with that part of our weather unit. The part we have left is the story writing component. Students will be writing a story in first person point of view as a raindrop. We will take each part of the water cycle day by day. Today's part is just the introduction. Students are to come up with a name, physical description, and location for their raindrop and write just that part tonight. See my example that is in their science notebooks for a model example. Then parents I need your help for the next part. After your child writes it, could you edit it and check it for punctuation, capitalization, and correct spellings. I can not get all these done in one day. Remember tonight is only writing the introduction. Then tomorrow I will give them the 2nd part. Thank you. Also, they have to make their raindrop on the piece of tagboard that went home with them tonight. The sky is the limit on the creativity for this one and what I know of this group, we are going to have some awesome raindrops. Reminder: Tomorrow is an early out-12:00 dismissal. Also, tomorrow we are having an off site evacuation drill. We will be walking to the church on Wicks as that is our location so make sure your child dresses appropriately for the weather. Have a great night.

Important Papers Came Home Today

Hi there-hope you all had a great weekend. Today, there were 2 very important papers that came home. The first one I will talk about is the pink one from the office regarding Parent-Teacher Conferences. Look at it and mark your 1st, 2nd, and 3rd choices for a conference time with me. These are due in the office by Wednesday, BUT if your child returns it tomorrow they will receive a $100 free money bonus. The next one is the packet about Drug Free Week. Ms. Erickson and I have lots going on in our classrooms that week to help your make good choices about staying drug free now will affect their lives later on. Please read through it very carefully and keep the first 3 pages on your fridge or in your organizer, or wherever. Send the last (4th) sheet back with your permission for the various activities/field trips. Thank you and if you have any questions, as always, please ask. Tomorrow is our field trip to the NILE down at the Metra. We are leaving school at 11:15 and need to eat lunch before they are ready for us in the lunchroom so your child will need a SACK LUNCH tomorrow. Sorry for the short notice, but there was a bit of a communication error. So again-a sack lunch is needed tomorrow and we will eat in our classrooms before we go. Also, make sure your child dresses for the weather. Most of it is indoors, but we do have to walk outside between buildings and it may be a bit wet or cool so be prepared. We took 2 assessments today. One in math (chapter 2) and the other in Science (the water cycle). If your child can tell you what transpiration is, write transpiration in the planner. HINT: It is something like perspiration, but for plants!!!! Reminder: Early Out on Wednesday. 12:00 dismissal and No School for students on Thursday & Friday. Have a great night.

Happy Friday Everyone!

First of all I want to congratulate Victor, Emily, Sydnee, Branson, and Ethan for taking part in the all city/county cross country meet yesterday at Pioneer Park. A HUGE CONGRATULATIONS to Victor for placing 5th in the boys' run. That is awesome considering there were many, many entries. Congratulations again, you made Bitterroot and Mrs. Hankins proud and most importantly the fact that you are "proud" of yourselves. Students were bummed today as this being Roby's last day. We wish him well in Shepherd. Next week as you know is a short week. We have a 12:00 dismissal on Wednesday and No School for students on Thursday & Friday! Also, on Tuesday afternoon we have our field trip to NILE. We leave school at 11:15 and arrive back at 2:00. No spelling words next week. We will do some review skills with the Unit 6 words that we skipped. We are having 2 assessments next week. We will test on Monday for chapter 2 of Math and in Science on the water cycle. Remember to practice those states and capitals. The letter for Drug Free Week will be coming home on Monday with everything for that week. Have a great weekend and enjoy this fabulous weather.

Happy Thursday!

Happy Thursday everyone! Today was another good day without a lot of real new happenings. Sad to report that our Roby's last day is tomorrow as he is leaving for Shepherd and starting school there. We are going to have some Roby time during our team building time tomorrow and I am bringing treats for the class. If your child wishes to make him a card tonight that is fine. The letter for Drug Free Week activities was finished today and will go home on Monday with all the happenings for Drug Free Week as well as permission slips for the other 2 field trips. Tomorrow is picture day and reminders went home today. Also tomorrow is PTA movie night and remember $500 to anyone who goes. We are at the end of chapter 2 in math and will have our test tomorrow. We will have a good review tomorrow to make sure they are ready which I have no doubts that they are. Have a good night and let's hope for some sunshine tomorrow. Cya

Quick Post

Quick post today as I had a staff meeting. Good day overall in Room 6!! Today in Montana History, we finished the sections on weather and Montana's Ecological Regions. If your child can tell you what 3 they are and which one we live in, write them in the planner for free money. If your child is our room for reading, ask them where they went today during reading and have them tell you about their experience. We will complete a Venn Diagram tomorrow comparing and contrasting the 2. In Social Studies today, we continued with our NE tour by stopping in Boston, Massachusetts. I also quizzed them on the states and capitals and I am seeing not a lot of them are studying so I hope they start to because this is a big part of their grade and they need to take it seriously. They brought home a song today that has all 50 on there, but they can start listening to it and practicing which will make the next region we get to that much easier to memorize. The site of the song is on the links of my blog also. PTA movie night is on Friday, October 12th. It is Monsters Inc. Students who come and enjoy some fun and support the PTA will get $500 of free money. That is 1 whole field trip!!!! Have a great night.

The Einsteins of Math

The title of this post came from one of the students' comments today during Math. It was: "Mrs. Hankins, you are making us the Einsteins of Math"!!! I love comments like that and yes they sure felt like it today. We did so much math in an hour lesson today, it was amazing. We did computation, geometry, number sense, graphing, and algebra all in one lesson. Amazing-and the great thing was-the fact that they all were grasping the concepts and understanding and feeling confident. See why I LOVE my job!! Today in Social Studies, we started the tour of the Northeast. Ask your child what mountains are the backbone of the NE and what kind of government we have and if they can answer that, write NE in the planner. We went over the states and capitals and not many of the kids knew too many so make sure you start studying. You know how time flies and the test will be here before you know it. I will quiz them orally on them each day and my hope is that more and more students know more of them daily. If your child is singing a fun water cycle song tonight, it is because we started the water cycle. They love the song and it is one of those you can't get out of your head. Anyway, if you want to hear it and sing along, it is on the side of my blog under favorite links. Tomorrow is Library so get those books returned. My reading kids took their unit 1 assessments today for the new reading series and they weren't too bad for the first try at it. This program is new for all of us. Now we are going to finish "There's A Boy in the Girls' Bathroom" before we move on. Great posters for our bake sale. WOW-I love the creativity!! Thank you to those that got them done last night. For those of you that didn't, they are due tomorrow. Have yours here so you can go and hang one up around the school. Great news for our NILE field trip. Everyone, but one student, was able to buy in for $500. Have a great night.

Lots Came Home Tonight!

Wowzers!! Lots of new stuff came home today. First of all, students brought home their laminated practice maps for learning the states & capitals in all 5 of the regions. To go with that, they have a map of just the Northeast with all 11 states and capitals. Today we finished the Geography Challenge for that region so tomorrow we will start the tour which means we will be ready for our test over the NE states and capitals on October 26th. Remember they don't have to know how to spell them as they will have a word bank to choose from, but they need to know the location and of course the state and its' capital. The orange paper that came home is to make a poster for our 4th Grade Bake Sale on October 31st. They wrote in the planner what needs to be on the poster. $100 will be given to students who make a neat, creative, 4th grade quality poster and then they will hang them up in the hallways at school on Wednesday. Also Math homework tonight for everyone. It is a continuous review of skills we have already worked on but that is why it is homework as that is practice. We will continue with algebraic expressions tomorrow. Today in Montana History, we learned about the importance of Montana's rivers and mountains. They had to locate them on a map of Montana. Ask your child 3 reasons why the rivers are important and write them in the planner for free money. My reading kids will be finishing up Unit 1 in reading with their assessment tomorrow and then we will move into Unit 3. Reminder: NILE field trip is on Tuesday, October 16th from 11:30-2:00. More on that later. I will be sending home an informational sheet early next week about all the upcoming Drug Free Week activities/field trips. Have a great night.

The Week Ahead

Hope you are enjoying your weekend. Sure was a surprise waking up to snow on the ground this morning. Yikes-it is too early for that. Glad it melted today. This is going to be another busy week. In reading, we finished Unit 1 on heritage so will test out of unit 1 and start on Unit 3. I am moving to Unit 3 because the stories go right along with the Northeast which is the region we are studying in Social Studies. I will be sending home 2 practice maps on Monday for your child to start studying the NE states and capitals. They not only have to know them, but the location as well. Also in reading this week, we are going to try and finish up our read-a-loud of "There's a Boy in the Girls' Bathroom". We will be taking an adventure into the opposite gender bathrooms and then doing a Venn Diagram to compare/contrast the two. This is always quite a fun adventure for them to see what the other bathroom is like. In Math, we are continuing with algebraic equations. We did a quick assessment practice of multiplication with multiplication wheels on Friday and I noticed that some of the students have forgotten some of their multiplication facts. It is going to be very important that they take some time on a nightly basis to practice them as we will be going into multiplying 2 & 3 digit numbers x 1 digit and 2 digit x 2 digit numbers and if they struggle with their fact memorization, this will be a difficult concept for them to master. So please take some time nightly to practice those for success here at school on the higher level concepts. In Science, we finished wildfires on Friday and will continue our weather unit by studying and doing a fun project to learn the water cycle. We have a fun song and a cool writing activity to go with it. The writing activity is going to be a homework project done in 4 parts and I will need your help editing your child's writing as it is nearly impossible for me to edit 22 of them for 4 days. There is also a fun art project that goes with it and these will be done at home also. The reason for that is because I find that we get the best creativity that way and they don't all look the same as they would if done here at school. More on this project as it is assigned. I will be sending home some construction paper on Monday for your child to make a poster for our bake sale that will be on Wednesday, October 31st. I hope you will be able to help us out by baking some treats. Thank you. As you can see from the picture that Emily is our student of the week. We loved hearing all about her and we now know that her favorite subject is Montana History and that she hopes to be a volleyball & soccer coach someday. Thank you for sharing, Emily. We didn't do a team building activity this week, but instead used the time to finish our wildfire unit by doing a fun partner activity. They got to work together and practice the trait of cooperation. Have a great rest of the weekend.

Halloween Bake Sale

As you know, the 4th grade loves to take field trips as an extension of our learning here in the classroom and in order to do that we need to raise money so we are having a bake sale on October 31st. It is an early out dismissal day because of Parent-Teacher Conferences so we will having it at 12:00. We will have some students set up on the primary side and some set up on the intermediate side to help sell. We will have a parent volunteer at each station too. So if you could please help us that would be great. We are looking for any kinds of baked goods like: cookies, cupcakes, healthy snacks, or any other fun thing you can think of. Having them be the Halloween theme would be fun as kids love that. We are selling them for 50 cents/piece. I know this is way early, but I wanted to give you enough time to start planning. I will be sending construction paper home tomorrow for them to each make a sign to put up in the hallway. In fact, that will be their weekend homework. Thank you for you help in this. Today in Social Studies, they had fun working in groups of 3 on a Geography Challenge. It was about population, precipitation, the regions, and elevation. Ask your child which region in the US has the highest overall elevation. Write that region in the planner for extra money. Everyone has homework tonight. It is on writing number expressions. We didn't have extra time to work on it so I sent it home. Have a great night

Quick Post Today

I have a staff meeting so I am going to make this a quick post. Good day in Room 6 again today with pretty much a normal routine. Stayed in for lunch recess and the kids did a great job playing board games. They loved it and we sure enjoyed the rain. Oh it smells so clean & fresh! Make sure you dress for the weather again tomorrow and I am sure we will be out as I think the rain has stopped. Now that all our character warrior shields are done, ask your child about the 4 cornerstones and the center of our character shields if they can tell you all 5 parts, write character in the planner for free money. They sure do look awesome in the hallway. I will post a picture of them tomorrow for you to see. In Science, we continued talking about wildfires & prescribed fires, good & bad fires, and today we learned about ways to protect your home from fires. If your child can tell you one way, write home safety in the planner. We will continue more on that tomorrow. As you can see, not a lot of exciting happenings. We just continue to work hard. Have a great night. Cya in the morning.

Good Day today in Room 6, but not a lot new to report. We started our Social Studies with our first geography challenge. We did it whole group even though they could have done it alone, but I wanted to model the correct way as they are going to be doing lots of these throughout the year. It was reviewing latitude and longitude and I was so excited to see they retained that concept. YIPPEE! The next challenge will be done with a partner. In Science, we started our mini unit on wildfires. Ask your child what the fire triangle consists of. Hint: It is the 3 things a fire needs to burn. If they can do it, make the triangle in the planner. New reading calendars went home today for October. If you didn't return Septembers yet, please do so tomorrow for credit. This is a big part of their grade. Students ran the 800 today and did a great job. In fact, they got a compliment from the PE teacher that they did it the best of all his groups so far. Way to go Team Hankins!! Tomorrow is Library day. Let's have 100% return of our books. It looks like the weather is going to turn quite a bit cooler tomorrow. So dress for the weather and bring a jacket. Have a great night.

Happy Monday!

Thank you for getting those character shields to school all covered and ready to go. They are turning out so fun as you will see the final products displayed in the hall. But, most importantly is what they say and the choices they are making to use these cornerstones/pillars of good character. They did put a lot of thought into them. Speaking of character, Mrs. Neese, the counselor, has introduced the purple hand cookie to our school this year. It goes with the purple hand pledge that the kids say every morning before they entered the building. Ask your child to say it to you, and write purple hand pledge in the planner. Each month, we have to choose a student from our classes that displays the use of that pledge. This month our winner was Jazmyn Kronewitter. She was nominated by her peers for helping others with organization, picking up people's art tub contents when they spill, playing with the new student, etc. Others were nominated also and those random acts of kindness were also stated. We put names on the board of the nominees and then students voted for whom they thought was most deserving. We had a good discussion about it and made sure that it was not a popularity thing. This is going to be a monthly activity so there are many more chances to be the recipient. I was so excited to see so many nominated and hear the reasons why because as their classroom teacher, I am not with them in every school setting. I am so proud of this group of kids. We started our section on estimation in math and the kids are loving it because we are using rounding to estimate and they already got it so we will cruise into over & under estimates, and then our algebraic equations. Tomorrow, we are starting our map skills to move us into the Northeast section of the U.S. Students will have to know the states and capitals of this region and I will be sending a map home soon for them to use as a study tool. I also posted them over on the side of the blog to start practicing now if you wish. They not only have to know them, but have to locate them also. In spelling this week for the kids in my spelling, the unit is on homophones and using them correctly so on the test Friday I will say the word and use it in a sentence, and they have to choose the correct one and write it. So not only practice spellings, but meanings and using in context this week. PTA fundraiser envelopes came home today. Read through the info inside and if any questions, please ask and if I can't answer I will direct your concern to one of the board members. Those of you that went to Saturday Live had fun I'm sure and thank you for supporting our PTA & school. Have a great night.