EDITOR’S NOTE

Winter break will start December 20, 2010, and go until December 31, 2010. School resumes on Monday, January 3^rd. Our class started making the morning announcements this week and will continue after break.

LITERACY

All students will be re-assessed on their reading levels after break.

Strategy: analyzing text structure

After break: making inferences

Genre: adventure/fiction

After break: poetry

Text Elements/Structure: plot structure

After break: figurative language

Writing Trait/Craft: voice

After break: ideas/conventions

Writing Mode/Unit of Study: personal narrative

After break: poetry

Grammar/Conventions: quotation marks

After break: apostrophes, quotations

Spelling: Unit 5

After break: Units 5 and 6

Vocabulary: no vocabulary

After break: rugged, conceal, amiable dubious, sandwiched, blurt out

MATH

Students practiced estimating whether a product is in the tens, hundreds, thousands, or more; reviewed and practiced with the partial-products algorithm for 1-digit multipliers; and practiced with the partial-products algorithm for 2-digit multipliers.

After break: Students will review and practice with the lattice method for multiplication; practice reading, writing, and comparing large numbers using patterns in the base-ten place-value system; start learning exponential notation for powers of 10 as a way of naming the values of places in our base-ten system; and discuss sensible ways of reporting a count when a large number of items has been counted.

SCIENCE

Students started the magnets/electricity unit. They learned that only iron sticks to a magnet, two magnets attract or repel when they interact, the magnetic force causes magnetic interactions, and a force is a push or a pull.

After break: Students will investigate magnetic properties, find out how to break the force of magnetism, and they will detect the force of magnetism.

IMPORTANT DATES

12/20 Winter Break Starts

1/3 School Starts