This has been a Great Week!
We started a few new units, enjoyed the sunshine and had a little bit of fun!
On April Fools Day, I started by leaving a sign on the door that read "School's Closed.  Go Home!"  That really set off the children.  Mr. Betor's class pranked us by taking all of the balls from our classroom and stuffing them into our bathroom!  We retaliated by taking his class's desks and chairs and moving them outside.  We watched the reaction from our room.  We thought it was very funny.

Reading:  We are continuing to work on independent reading comprehension skills and deeper questions.  You may have noticed question phrasing is becoming more complex.  Your children are seeing "all of the above" , "none of the above" or "which is NOT an example of" questions.  These can be quite difficult.

Math:  We are working into the thousands place for place value, expanded notation and both mental math and paper and pencil math.  Because of your children's excellent progress in fact knowledge, this seems fairly easy for them.

Writing:  We did our final assessment for informational writing.  Your children took notes on 1 day and wrote for 1 full hour the next with no assistance. The results were impressive.  Most children showed a huge improvement,  We are starting Persuasive writing now.  Watch out!  Your children may begin to lobby you in letter form using persuasive arguments to get what they want.

Science:  We have begun our soils unit.  This week we examined local soil and stated information that we already know about soil and what we hope to learn.  We also began to discuss composting and how it works.

Thank you for all your continued help and support.  I appreciate all the time you put into your children at home to help them be the successful students they are.  Have a great weekend!