Friday, April 29th, 2016

Where has the month gone?




When we return on Monday it will be May already!

What a Friday in Room 80!  Mrs. Bowles and Mrs. Zwack were in meetings for the first part of the morning.  This meant that we were fortunate to have Mrs. Gates come in and share our learning.  We worked on both Daily 5 and  Math Daily 3.  We also continued our work on our henna pictures.  They are coming along very nicely.

In math we are working on finding the most efficient strategies for our multiplication and division facts.  We played Around the World with fact cards that had missing parts.  This made us really THINK about fact families as well as other strategies to find the missing numbers.

We had a dress rehearsal for Annie.   Our own Miss Zabrina had the opportunity to step into the role of an orphan due to the illness of the actor who usually plays the part.  Zabrina was fabulous and no one knew that she was a stand in!  Congratulations!




1.)  Monday will be  Music Monday.  We will have an assembly at 11:00 am and sing with the rest of the country.
2.)  Two notes went home today:  one about Annie the other about Pediculosis
3.)  Annie Reminders

• Kids who are on stage are asked to arrive at 5:45 and head to the music room for costumes etc.  
• Students in the Chorus are asked to dress nicely and head to their classrooms at 6:15 pm – line them up Tallest to Smallest
• Room 80 performs on Thursday, May 5th – Afternoon at 1:30 Evening at 6:30.
• Doors will open for seating 15 minutes prior to show ( 1:15 / 6:15)
• Students are asked to enter the school through the TEACHER doors – anticipating large line ups at the front of the building.
• Tickets are currently still available for all shows

IF you could ask your teachers anything, what would it be?

Thursday, April 28, 2016

Happy Thursday - one more day until the weekend!

This morning we started our day with some focused Read to Self time before heading to the gym for our rehearsal.  Yesterday, we all cleaned out our reading bins and ensured that we had a “good fit” book or two to read.  At this point in the year, we are expecting students to continue to be reading independently at home each evening as well as their in-school reading. 

Students:  Please tell mom and dad about the book you are currently reading and why it is a ‘good fit’ for you.

Our rehearsal went well this morning and tomorrow will be a full dress rehearsal.

We have been working with Mrs. Peterson’s class on our Global Citizenship Inquiry work.  We formed groups of students based on area’s of interest and have begun searching for answers to their wonders and questions.  Your child can tell you about their topic and what they have learned so far.  We encourage students to look for information at home (with your guidance on the computer) or at the public library, newspaper, etc. 

In math today we continued to connect multiplication with division. We started the day with a 5 minute one hundred multiplication fact sheet.  This was so Mrs. Bowles can see which facts we know and which facts we try and answer.  This is a good way to see our multiplication thinking.  We also looked at some division squares. These are a division puzzle that makes us connect our multiplication thinking to division.

Mr. W read Auggie and Me because Mrs. Bowles is losing her voice.  

In our science inquiry, we continued to work on each of our projects.  The engineers wrote up an information card for the main dome of our Mars model. Now we will break into pairs and write one for each part of the model.  We will look at materials, purpose and how we plan on powering that unit.

The scientists are helping the engineers for their next project by finding out information about wind speed, hours of sunlight and seasons on Mars.  They will then use this information to see if wind turbines will be useful to create energy for power.

In gym, we were outside. We had some free time to play bocce or play on the playground.

• Kids who are on stage are asked to arrive at 5:45 and head to the music room for costumes etc.  
• Students in the Chorus are asked to dress nicely and head to their classrooms at 6:15 pm – line them up Tallest to Smallest
• Room 80 Performances will be on Thursday, May 5th – Afternoon at 1:30 Evening at 6:30.
• Doors will open for seating 15 minutes prior to show ( 1:15 / 6:15)
• Students are asked to enter the school through the TEACHER doors – anticipating large line ups at the front of the building.
• Tickets are currently still available for all show

Question of the Day:

Find one fact about wind or sunlight on Mars.

Wednesday, April 27, 2016

Good Afternoon Everyone,

This afternoon was crazy!  With all of the Annie practicing our whole schedule is thrown off.

Mrs. Redwood came in a taught us a very short math class.

We looked at fact families for multiplication and division. If you know one fact you can use it as a strategy to find the answer for another.

She then took us down to music with Mrs. Jones. We continued to work on our pre-precorders.  Some of us even got to play something for her.

When we returned we had our afternoon nutrition break and read some more of Auggie and Me.  I love having the opportunity to read to you all again!  I am sad that this book is almost over and know that we have many other good books to choose to read.

In Girl Power and Good Guys we talked about Standing Up to our friends when we may need to. Some of the key points that we learned today were:

• Standing up for yourself is not being mean It's a way of respecting yourself.
• Standing up for yourself is not necessary every single time something happens
• Standing up for yourself to a friend (i.e. putting out a friendship fire) is done in a calm, respectful voice where you explain how the situation made you feel and you talk it out together. 
• Quick comebacks are necessary when someone is mean to you on purpose (e.g. bullying). 

We finished off our day taking stock in our Mars Inquiry. We talked about communicating our learning and where we need to go. We have so much left that we want to do.  Today we decided how to make our Mars model into a museum piece and that we want to share information with people who see it just like in a museum. We also talked about powering our Mars Station.  We are currently looking at wind and solar power. We are also going to be building some vehicles that we can use on Mars.  With all that we are learning I wouldn't be surprised if NASA wants to hire us!

Dear Parents, 

We are very excited to present “Annie Kids” next week. Please make note of the following items: ALL STUDENTS ARE TO ENTER THE SCHOOL THROUGH THE SOUTH / TEACHER DOORS. Characters with speaking / singing parts on stage are asked to arrive at 5:45pm and report to the music room. Costumes will remain in the school until after the final performance on Thursday evening. We ask parents to send their child with their hair and make up done and we will do touch ups as needed. Students in the singing chorus are asked to dress nicely and arrive at 6:15pm and report to their regular classroom. Doors will open for afternoon seating at 1:15pm and evening at 6.15pm. The expectation is that all students are present for their night of performance. If you are not attending the evening show, please arrange for your children to be dropped off at the appropriate time and picked up NO LATER THAN 7:30pm. 

Peace Wing - Mrs. Bowles/Zwack will be performing on Thursday, May 5th.

Tickets must be provided at the door and are currently still available for purchase. Due to the rights and licensing regulations with our purchase agreement of “Annie Kids”, we are NOT permitted to take video or still photos during the production. Time will be provided at the end for photo ops. 

Many thanks for the continued support of our music program, 

Mrs. Jessica McBride

Today during our science inquiry we discussed that we may need to heat our Mars Station. We talked about building a campfire.   Why can't you build a campfire on Mars?