Reminders for this week

1. Monday and Tuesday are STAAR testing days for 4th and 5th grade. No visitors allowed, even for lunch.
2. We will be taking practice STAAR tests on Monday and Tuesday. I will communicate these results to you as soon as I can.
3. There is homework this week, as usual.
4. No school Friday. There is school on Monday, however, which marks the beginning of the final 2 weeks of preparation before our real STAAR tests.

News for the 4th and final nine weeks

Yikes! That last grading period just flew by.

As we enter the final quarter of the school year, our attention turns towards a comprehensive review of all the concepts that we have covered this year. The STAAR test is just 4 weeks away, so the next month will contain important test preparation activities. Please do all you can to have your child at school all day, every day as we prepare for them to do their best on the STAAR test. Next Monday and Tuesday we will have a STAAR practice test. Like we did during the DLA in January, we will create test day conditions. The results of this practice test will be communicated to you as soon as possible and I will use the data to personalize review activities to specific student needs.

In the links to the right, you will find the spelling lists and homework schedule for the remainder of the year. The students received these on Monday.

For the next two weeks in each subject, we will be working on the following:

1. Reading- biography and autobiography
2. Language arts- summary writing, proofreading, and editing
3. Math- liquid volume, capacity, weight, and mass; then, data analysis
4. Science- plant and animal life cycles
5. Social studies- review of map skills and geography

The first week of May will include IOWA testing. This is the test that HISD has chosen to replace the Stanford 10 test that students have been taking for several years. More information will follow.

Towards the end of the year, we will host the 3rd and final GT Expo of the year. I will let you know when we are ready to begin work on those projects.

As always, please let me know if you have any questions or concerns.

GT Expo #2 Approaches!

This week students began planning the layout of information for their presentation cubes. Planning will be completed in class on Monday, January 26. That means that students must be finished reading their book by that day! The cube panels will go home on Monday and return to school on February 2 to be assembled. Also note, drafts of the song/poem must be here at school for initial approval on the 30th.

Thank you for supporting your child in this project.

GT Expo 2

As I mentioned earlier in the week, the second GT Expo of the year will be held on February 6th. In the links to the right you will find the guidelines. The short version is this: Students will select a book, dress as a character from the book, and present from that character's point of view. In addition, they will be building a presentation cube as a display. They will also either compose a song or write a poem that summarizes their book from the selected character's point of view. As always, if you have any questions, contact me.

Welcome back!

I hope everyone had a wonderful break. It was great to see the class again and hear about their time off.

We jumped right back into the work today. For the next couple weeks we will be reading and writing persuasive texts. In math we will work on solving problems with fractions and then move on to money and personal finance. Our science topic will be landforms and changes to the landscape caused by natural events. We will be studying change over time in social studies.

Report cards will go home on Friday. Again, they will be in an envelope which you will need to sign and return.

The second GT Expo is just a month away. Students will be getting information on this later in the week. There will be a more detailed post about it here by Friday. The theme is "Literacy Fair" which is like a science fair, but with books. Be aware, it will involve dressing up, singing, and writing.

Hour of Code, extra credit, winter break project

This week the class participated in the Hour of Code which a global initiative to interest students in computer science and related careers in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). There were some technical difficulties at first owing to the fact that we were trying to share the Hour of Code website with millions of other people at the time. We did eventually get coding, and I think it was a good experience for the students. They learned the basic concepts of computer programming, namely the need for accurate, detailed directions given in a logically thought out sequence.

In case you did not see the note, I am offering an extra credit math grade for any student that does another coding tutorial on their own. To earn the extra credit, students must complete and of the tutorials found  at code.org and write a paragraph describing the experience, and telling how the skills needed for successful computer coding apply to their other school work. This is due by Monday the 15th.

Over the coming winter break, the students will have an assignment to complete. It will be a book report of sorts, the directions for which will be posted in the links next week. Student will need to read a chapter book, write a report, and design a book cover. This directions will go home on the 17th and the project will be due January 12th. To encourage the students to complete the project over the break, there will be an ice cream reward for those who turn the assignment in on January 6th. This assignment will count as a project grade. It should be considered a warm up for GT Expo #2, coming in early February.

If you do not follow the class on Twitter, I encourage you again to do so. It is a great way to keep up with what we are doing in class day to day. Follow us on Twitter here.

As always, let me know if you have any questions.

Thank you for a great first half of the year! I hope everyone enjoys some time with family.

Updates as we head into December

As I am sure you know, this is a short week. However, we will be working, so please be sure your child is at school both days.

Speaking of this week, there is no homework this week, nor is there a spelling test. The students will be expected to keep a reading log which will be due December 1st.

Going forward in reading in reading, we will be finishing up with reading procedural texts and finish the quarter with a unit on folk tales. In math, we will spend the next week and a half on comparing fractions and representing equivalent fractions. Natural resources will be our next topic in science after we complete our work on energy. The next 3 weeks in social studies will cover government and economy.

I have some room in my Monday after school tutorial if you are interested in your child staying. The tutorial time is used for extra practice and extension of skills. Tutorials occur Monday after school and last until 4:15. Let me know if you are interested.

The week of December 8th, the class will be participating in the Hour of Code as part of Computer Science Education Week. The Hour of Code aims to introduce students to computer programming in order to raise interest in STEM careers. No prior experience is necessary and it should be a good experience. This past week, the class practiced some "unplugged" coding. Using symbols, they wrote directions, "code", for creating an image on grid paper.