Happy Friday!  We finished out our first week with full school days and your kids are doing great!  Learning how to plan and manage time has been the focus of this week’s morning activities, while observing and learning to distinguish the difference between facts and inference has taken place in the afternoon.  Your kids know a lot of facts about the teeth of T-Rex!  I’m impressed.

We have been doing a lot of writing with our observations and morning dictionary work, so if your kids are complaining of sore hands, it’s for good reason.

We began our first in class research project this afternoon with the reading of From Lava to Life, a story that supports our second Great Lesson, The Coming of Life.  You will find a description of the project here, Time line of Life Research Book Project , along with the rubric for scoring.  This will mainly be an in class project, due Friday September 4, but so many of your kids were excited to get started that they brought it home to work on.  If your students brought home their rubric, you will notice the total points possible is an error.  It states 50 pts, while the total should be 55 pts possible.  I have corrected it on the link.

As per our classroom management plan, your children should have brought home their weekly work evaluation form completely filled out for you to sign.  This must be returned with them on Monday.  Please ask them about this evaluation, it is a key tool, along with their planners, to see the progress they are making and to get an idea of the work they are doing each day in the classroom.  We have spoken a bit about goal setting (with many more discussions to come) and how specific goals are much more meaningful than a general goal of say, “work harder”.  We are talking about setting SMART goals as a tool for success in the classroom and out.  If your child has written “work harder” or “get a lot done” as their goal for next week, now is a great time to have a conversation with them about setting goals that are specific and measurable.

Finally, before this post becomes even longer, our school’s annual 5K Race for the Redwoods is on September 19 with a pancake breakfast to follow.  All proceeds from the race and the Pancake Breakfast support our 6th grade trip to the Redwoods!  This is an amazing experience that is worth every bit of your support.   Come support our school community and get to know each other!  In addition to a registration form for the race being sent home with your child, you can find additional copies at the following link.  Race for the Redwoods Registration

I hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Ms. Amity