Room 26 Weekly News
March 7, 2016
Announcements
It's BizTown time!!! Our field trip to JA BizTown is on Tuesday, March 8. Please remember:
- Arrive at school on time! The buses will be leaving first thing!
- Your child should bring a sack lunch (everything must be disposable, no lunch boxes or reusable water bottles, please.)
- Your child should dress professionally and appropriately for his/her job.
- Look for texts from me via the Remind app regarding the timing of our return to LCM. We are scheduled to return at 3:30, depending on traffic. Please note that our return is AFTER the normal 3:10 dismissal, so students who usually take a bus to after-school care will need other arrangements that afternoon.
NOTE: If you are not subscribed to my Remind, please subscribe via text. (You will need the Remind app - it's free.) First, enter the number 81010 Then, text this message: @5dbc9 It is a very easy way for me to send out quick text messages to let you know about important events. I typically only use it for things like returning from a field trip so parents know when to drive to the school.
The Apex Fun Run is this Thursday, March 10! This is one of the PTO's few annual fundraisers (along with the Wave Fund and the Halloween Carnival) and the money earned helps pay for Music, Science Garden, 1:1 Technology, and other amazing programs for La Costa Meadows.
Every student has been approved for a Science Fair topic. I hope they are hard at work on their project and truly enjoying this self-directed, hands-on learning opportunity. I am so excited to see the experiments your children design to test their hypotheses! Please offer your children support, guidance, and assistance as they work through the Scientific Method, but don't do it for them. Please allow the work to be theirs. One of the best ways you could help them is by reading the write-ups they do for each section of their report and display. Allow them to write it independently and encourage them to revise/edit/fix mistakes, but please check it over before they submit it. They should be using correct paragraph format (indent the first line only, left justify the rest of the lines.) All sentences should be complete, grammatically correct, and use correct capitalization and punctuation. There should be spaces between sentences. Words should be spelled correctly. Please don't fix the errors for them, but go through their writing with them and help them find and fix the mistakes themselves. Circle misspelled words and have your student use a resource such as spell-check, a dictionary, or an online dictionary to find and correct spelling errors...using resources to spell words correctly is a 5th grade standard! You may desperately want to "rewrite" parts of it for them, but please resist that urge. Instead, ask your child questions about the paragraph if it needs more explanation, have them read it out loud if the sentences don't make sense and ask them what they meant to say, or ask them if they can think of a more descriptive way to write something (using more precise, academic vocabulary) if something seems vague. In that way, you can help them revise it themselves rather than doing it for them. Please feel free to email me if you are unsure how much "help" to give your child or how to answer their questions. I truly want this to be THEIR project, something they are proud of accomplishing themselves. Remember, all projects should be brought to school on March 22, 2016. (Please do not bring the trifold displays in early...I do not have space to store them!)
Language Arts
Math
Science
Most students are rebuilding skeletons from the bones they found in their dissected owl pellets. It has been a wonderful learning experience, and students are feeling a big sense of accomplishment now that their skeletons are coming together. The last pieces of this project will be to label the bones in the skeletons and write an informational essay about the owl pellet process. You will be able to see these amazing projects at Open House in a few weeks!
For information on Science Fair projects, please see the "Announcements" section of this newsletter (above.)
Social Studies
Specials
PE - Monday and Wednesday
Science Garden - missing this week due to BizTown
Library - Thursday
Upcoming Dates
March 10 - Apex Fun Run
March 11 - Flag Salute
March 18 - Flag Salute
March 24 - Open House
March 28 - Spring Break begins (school resumes April 4)