I hope you all enjoyed the three day weekend.  I can’t believe it’s Friday already.  Whew!  Time flies when you are working hard, like the students have all week.

There are a lot of updates so pull up a chair, pour a warm drink and settle in.

Science Fair was Wednesday and we had some really fantastic projects from our class.  Our very own Hailey, a 6th level student, won 3rd place overall and will be moving on to the Ritchey Science Fair on March 20th.  Congratulations to Hailey!

Today we had a whole class lesson on context clues and how to identify words we don’t know the meaning of by looking for four clues: synonyms, antonyms, explanations and examples.  We watched a short video to help the students understand each on of these clues a little more.  Follow this link, and you can watch the video with them if you would like.

http://www.flocabulary.com/context-clues/

We also had a zoology lesson on mountain biomes.  We started watching the BBC Planet Earth Mountains DVD and looked for 3 animals, 3 plants and 3 mountain ranges that were mentioned in the video.  The BBC puts out amazingly beautiful educational films.

Our 4th grade students have been working on improving their sentence writing, learning about decimals and learning how to identify locations on a map given their longitude and latitude.

Our fifth grade students are finishing their unit on Ancient Egypt and have a pyramid project due on Tuesday, February 25th.  They are to create a pyramid from whichever medium they prefer.  It could be clay, sugar cubes, paper, cardboard or whatever materials your have available in your home.  They also created a classified ad looking for workers, instead of slaves, to help them build their pyramids.

In preparation for our DWA Tuesday, February 25th, our 5th level students have been practicing persuasive essay writing.  Please have your 5th level student log on to Utah Write this weekend and practice, practice, practice.  With less than one week to go, any amount of practicing they can do will benefit them greatly.  We have discussed ways to make their writing longer, by using more detail and examples within their writing.

In 6th grade this week, we had two lessons on how to write a short response to a literary passage using “ACE”. Answer the question concisely,  Cite the information directly (quote) or indirectly (summarizing), and Explaining by giving examples from the text.  This is a concept that is a little bit challenging, but with practice will become much easier.  We also discussed some of the causes of the Revolutionary War.  We talked about the Stamp Tax, Townshend Duties, Boston Massacre and the Boston Tea Party.  Next week we will discuss the First Continental Congress.

Next week we have Ballet West coming to do an in school fieldtrip.  They will be visiting with us on Wednesday.  Also coming up next week, we have a Parent Education Night entitled: School Safety for our Generation.  This will be held Thursday, February 27th at 7:00pm.  Representatives of NOPD and North View Fire Dept. will also be there.

Lastly, we have a maturation program for our 5th and 6th level students on March 11th.  A permission slip was sent home with your student this week.   Please sign and return the form with your student by March 7th.  The program is called Growing Up Comes First.  You can see an overview of the program online by visiting www.growingupcomesfirst.org/en/parent-guide

Have a wonderful weekend.

Cheers!!