I was unable to get logged onto the website this week, so forgive my late posting. I hope you all noticed that the only assigned homework for the remainder of the year is reading. Students have evidence binders that they are collecting writing and social studies projects into. Some of this work may be brought home at student's discretion.

We learned today of the sad death of our friend and teaching assistant Jerry Tavares. Teachers and students will miss Jerry.

It's hot at school, but we still have work to do and things to learn.

I have to go back on what I said yesterday. For some reason I thought I was on last week, not this week and we do have assessments. Today we will do Istation on the computer (for reading and spelling) and tomorrow we will do a district assessment in reading/writing called "Frog Fest." Time flies around here.

It's true...I can't keep up with my own blog. How will I become famous? Keep trying.

This week should be pretty normal...or as normal as we get....no field trips, no substitutes, no assessments.

But speaking of assessments, we will start working on our final portfolio in writing this week. We will work on narratives. Next week we have an Istation assessment on Tuesday and a writing and reading assessment after that (spaced out appropriately.)

Please remember that we write in journals every day and read every day for homework (Monday to Thursday).

We are back in full swing. This week we finish our third I-search and get ready to present on Tuesday May 3rd. This will be a desktop presentation rather than an oral presentation.

We finish our social studies text this week and write a response to literature.

We have a lot of end of year business which will be starting soon.....finishing our writing portfolio, doing one more I-station assessment and one more data bank assessment. There are also at least two assessment for math.

I was going to try to get to this blog at least one a week. I am not doing well enough to meet the standard at this time, but I have renewed my vow.

Reading, writing and maps have been all the rage in language arts and social studies. We continue to read our social studies text The Story of Us, First Americans. We are enjoying listening to Joy Hakim's story read by Christina Moore. We discuss and write about what we read, rather like a literature circle.

Ms. Lamb has renewed the emphasis on our journals. We write in them Monday through Thursday for homework and at least two times per week at school. We have started picking one entry to work toward final draft each week. We will have a terrific pile of writing at the end of this trimester.

I-search is really a non-fiction book project this trimester. Students should have completed their books and thirty notes for this Friday. Feel free to work on your projects over vacation. We will work on them some during the week after vacation.

Don't forget about our celebration on Wednesday the 13th.

I haven't really been bloggin much lately. I'll try to give an overview. We finished up last trimester and sent home report cards on the 18th. Please get those envelopes back in and send us an email with questions, concerns or to set up a conference. We will try to have an open house sometime next month to talk about the rest of the year and next year!

We are still working on native Americans in social studies, but we are transitioning into explorers. Today we start with Marco Polo. Tomorrow we overview Christopher Columbus and then we each take on an explorer and create a biography card to share with the class.

We are also continuing to connect to the environment. We will study the various geographic features of North and South America. We will also identify places in Europe.

In LA, we have a basic structure. On Monday we study words (spelling and vocabulary), Tuesdays is readiing/writing, Wednesday Friday is reading and Thursday is grammar day.

I will write again soon (I hope.)

Cate Lamb

There has been a lot happening and I haven't been blogging much lately. Now that report cards are done, I feel a little less stressed.

Check out report cards and call us if you need to.

We have a second celebration scheduled for April 13th (a Wednesday). More news on that later.

We continue and wrap up our study of native Americans and move into our study of explorers (European explorers that is.)

We finally have a Monday. We have missed the past two Mondays for holidays or cold days. We got back to the library and to word study today.
We also started planning our book projects for lit circle books. These will be presented on Friday. We hope to have a bit of a "celebration" of these books on Friday. We will share a bit of morning snack and show off our projects. We hope some parents/kids would be willing to donate some snacks to share. We hope to collect some juice and morning cakes or fruit. Thanks for helping out with this if you can.

Ihope you are all taking a moment to remember Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s work today. Ms. Lamb and Mrs. Clark are working at school. Our main topic is integrating technology into curriculum.

We are delving into researching some specific Native American groups this week. We start with the Inuit. We will learn a note taking method, then break into five groups around these topics: Inca, Aztec, Pueblo, Algonquin and Iroquois. Later students will investigate a Native American group of their own choosing and create a power point or photo story to share with the class

Don't forget about your I-search. You should be nearing the completion of your research. That would be at least 20 notes by this Friday and all 30 by next Friday.

We will work on this in class some this week.

Tomorrow is lit circle day. Please be ready with your journal and your reading complete.

We worked on our new Native American/Explorer Unit today. Ms. Lamb's homeroom watched a Time Life video about the Inca and created a colored note drawing chart.

Ms. Clark's class got I-search folders organized.

Ms. Lamb's class created our sentences using our Native American word splash words. Mrs. Clark's class will do this tomorrow.