Another week has flown by!  We are all feeling the excitement of having a vacation soon.... it's hard for the students to stay focused on work when there is so much to look forward to!

We have spent the week doing some finishing up. We finished our writing pieces yesterday and I sent them home for you to see what sorts of strategies and skills your children have been learning. Our main focus has been on organization, using paragraphs, and using special text features that help readers understand non-fiction texts. I always love this particular unit because I think it really helps students understand paragraphs. Today we had a celebration. We got together with Mr. Brezic's class and read each other's writing while eating some holiday treats and drinking eggnog. It was fun and celebratory!

In reading, we finished researching and presenting information about a weather event -- tornado, hurricane, blizzard and tsunami. Now the students are moving on to research another even, using the same research skills to do the work a second time. They have learned to organize their thinking and their notes into different sections, ie causes, forecasting, results, and safety. As with the writing unit, our focus in on organization of thoughts and putting like information together.

We finished up our science unit this week as well. The students made "bumper coasters" to see how potential energy and energy transfer works. Then they completed a written assessment to show what they have learned.

In math, we are continuing our geometry unit. The students did a short "quiz" and I was pleased to see they know how to find perimeter. Now we are working on different polygons, counting their sides, looking at their angles, and sorting them by those characteristics. We are learning to use words like obtuse angle, acute angle, and right angle. Later, we will learn how to measure angles using a protractor!

Next week will be full of celebrations as well. We will have a reading celebration, and we will spend Friday doing some fun things as well. I plan to make a pancake breakfast for the class on Friday. Mrs. Honeycutt (who works in my classroom) will bring in some fruit. If anyone wants to send in some maple syrup or juice to add to our meal, that would be wonderful!

Many thanks to all of you who ordered cookbooks. I don't have a final count yet, but I know we made at least a small profit that will help offset the cost of our end-of-year trip. I'll let you know the totals as soon as I know them. If you haven't ordered a cookbook yet and still want to, just let me know.

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!