Week of 10.25 - 10.29

Happy Halloween!

What a jam-packed week we've had.  Our fieldtrip to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra on Monday was spooooky.  The kids were fantastic audience members.  Our Halloween Parade and party today was a lot of fun.  Everything in between kept us busy, too!  As usual, we laughed a lot and worked even more. 

A few random highlights for insight into my world: 

1. Favorite quote of the week: (As we were feeling our muscles in science) "My legs feel like beef!"
2. Our last theme in Open Court was "Cooperation and Competition."  Our kids worked together and we won the Golden Lunchbox award for the most waste-free lunches on Wednesday!  Talk about cooperation to win a competition.  Truly this class is special.
3. On Thursday I marveled at how I could take the kids through a sophisticated poem like "The Raven," and then 15 minutes later they had frosting ALL over their faces during birthday treats.  What an age..

Reading:  We started our new unit "From Mystery to Medicine" in Open Court this week.  The kids kids were SO interested in our first story "Medicine:  Past and Present."  They asked if we could add the medicine timeline from the story to our big timeline on the wall.  A great idea indeed!  Ask your kids about how the medical field has progressed over the last 4000 years.

Writing:  We are starting our next publishing cycle.  The kids had a few creative prompts for homework this week to get their juices flowing again and I presented another genre of writing we haven't seen yet this year, a personal essay.  We also looked at some student work to 'assess' the quality based on the rubric.  Ask your kids about their ideas for new writing topics.


Science:  We covered joints, tendons, ligaments and muscles this week.  Ask your kids about the different kinds of joints we have in our bodies and how they help us indifferent ways.

Math:  We are working through Unit 3:  multiplication and division, open sentences and number stories.  This week we worked through division, and took a 'world tour' to practice measuring air distance.  We practiced using map scales to convert measurement on a map to travel across the world.   

Miscellaneous:

• Send in those flashdrives!   We will find a way to keep them 'safe' here at school, either in a baggie, on a keychain, or with some sort of clip.  Ideas or suggestions are welcome!
• Our poor butterfly chair needs a seamstress!  If you can sew the ripped corner, let us know.