This week has seemed a little bit like the first week of school after returning back from a week at home due to the Flood of 2015. I am so glad to see everyone back safe and sound. And I am so proud of my students for caring for the flood victims and going out into our communities to help in any way possible. Thank you parents for giving your children those opportunities to show compassion and empathy for others.

This week in reading we have been getting back into the swing of things and practicing expectations for independent reading. The children have continued to listen to the read aloud of Maniac Magee by Jerry Spinelli. After looking at the results of a pretest on Informational text features, we will begin a short unit of study learning how to read text features. Using our TFK will be one of our main resources. I am noticing that some children are not reading closely and they are not referring back to the text (TFK) when answering questions. I have noticed that many of them are not reading the captions or headings. We will work on those things and then they will take a post test and hopefully we will see some improvement. We will also be learning how to write a short, yet detailed, answer to the essay question on the TFK. I am noticing that many students do not really understand how to use evidence from the text to support their thinking. I am hoping that through Socratic Seminar and practice, they will all become masters at answering questions in their own words.

In writing, the children are continuing their informational book. This week I feel like we have gotten a lot accomplished and many students are almost ready for publication. They have done research, and they are reading to get this "book" under way. This week in writing we also started our cursive handwriting. Each week we will spend some time practicing cursive writing. They did a pretest this week that they will do again at the end of the school year to see how much they have grown in that area.

Factors and multiples...we are getting the hang of this, but still confusing the two every now and then. We are covering so much math during our daily math conversations. Today we learned about exponents and multiplying with decimals in two and three digit numbers. We also learned that a little dot between two numbers can replace the x when multiplying. I loved watching them learn today. It was amazing.

I hope that you are enjoying seeing all that your child is doing on ALEKS. It amazes me how much they can learn on this program. If your child is prompted to complete a Knowledge Check, they are allowed to do it at home, but PLEASE DO NOT help them. This knowledge check is extremely important information for me when trying to help them. If you help them, the program will think that they know a topic and they will not have to practice that skill anymore. That would be terrible if they really didn't know the skill. So, if it is a knowledge check, they MUSt do the work alone or at school.

Well, we finally finished our first science chapter. I think they have learned so much, and this information will really help them to understand how to do their science fair project. I am going to send that information to you ASAP so you can begin thinking about it. Last year people got stuck doing the project over Christmas break, and I DO NOT want that to happen to any of you. The Scientific Inquiry test is tomorrow (Friday) and the notebooks are due on Monday. You may want to go through the notebook with your child to see if they have completed everything. You can use the rubric in the front of their notebook to see what I will be looking for when I grade the notebooks. I have reminded them of this every day, so I hope they have been neat all along the way.

Tomorrow we get to finish off our unit not only with the test, but with an activity the kids can't wait to do.... Will they be able to save Fred? Ask your child to tell you a little about what they will have to do tomorrow.

We are so excited to share the news that our very own Breana is a STAR! Well, we already knew that, but now the whole world can know. Breana will be working with the Dolly Parton Management Group in Tenn for the next 12 weeks from Oct 19 until Jan 3. in a play called The Christmas Carol in Gaitlinburg TN. She will play the role of Tiny Tim in this Christmas Musical. She will have the opportunity to work alongside and learn from industry experts who have been in the business for several years and meet/work with Dolly Parton. Breana auditioned in late April for a chorus part and got a call back in June to come in August where she auditioned with 43 girls and 7 boys for one of the three choir parts. They were looking for three children to be in the choir and two males to play the role of Tiny Tim. Breana was called to play the role of Tiny Tim. Breana will also be working with a singer/songwriter while in TN on developing a CD. Three songs have been written for her and she had the opportunity to record the first song. She is now working on learning the other two songs before she goes into the studio again.

We will miss Breana while she is away, but we are so proud of her and wish her the best. This is a big deal for their family, so please keep them in your prayers. I am sure Breana would love to get some "fan mail" from all of us, so we hope to get her address so we can stay in touch while she is away. When she comes back, she will be back in our class as if she never left.

Isn't this exciting?