Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Water Water Everywhere....except in Hati

Hi parents,
Just a reminder to please send in bottles of water for Hati. We are collecting this bottles at the front office and in the classroom.

Thanks for you support.

Sunday, February 21, 2010

Week of February 22-26

Hi there,

I hope ya'll had a great weekend and rested up for some more exciting learning.
This week will be somewhat of a recap from last week. Here's what we're doing:

Reading: We will continue working with Bud, Not Buddy in our Teacher Directed Reading. The kids seem to love the little antics that the character "Bud" gets into. We are also tying in The Great Depression for social studies; learning about what kids would do during that time period and how things have changed since then.
We will also be starting some EOG prep reading on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. We will be working on stratigies for finding information in the reading.

Math: We will work on Changing improper fractions to mixed numbers and then continue with Adding, Subtracting and Reducing fractions. We will continue to take notes and practice problems. Please encourage your child to take good notes to review at home.

Science/Writing: We are working on Report Writing for our content piece. I am modeling how to write for the next couple of days. The students will start their piece by choosing their own particiluar animal. This will lead us into our Animal unit for science. Again, note taking is going to be the key to their learning.

Spelling List for this week: cinder, circle, cardinal, cereal, cycle, concert, dancer, celebrate, twice, dangerous, strange, ledge, damage, geography, gentle, signal, regular, sugar.

**Progress Reports were sent out last Thursday and some students have not turned in assignments. Please review over what your child has not turned in. It is their responsibility to get their work to me.

Monday, February 15, 2010

The Week of Feb. 15-19

Hi Everyone.
I hope this finds everyone reading it well and eager to start a new week at Gibson!
We have a lot of things coming up and not a lot of time so being focused and prepared is essential to our learning.
Here's what we are getting in to this week:

Reading: Our class just wrapped up the Chocolate Touch. We enjoyed learning a little about chocolate and tasting it. We have moved on to Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis. I LOVE THIS BOOK. The characters are so lifelike and funny that it's hard to put done. Please ask your child what he or she has read so far.

Math: We are starting on Adding and Subtracting fractions. I know that this sounds like a HUGE ordeal, but really it's quite simple. The add and subtracting also allows us to practice more reducing fractions. In "addition" (no pun intended), students should continue to work on their multiplication facts. This will help greatly with fractions.

Scholastic Studies Weekly: We are going to start using the Scholastic Magizine for our Science as well as social studies. It is very kid-friendly and has some interesting articles that they can relate to. I will be collecting them at the end of the week so please make sure they are taking good care of them.

Spelling this week deals with the "aw" sound--also, bought, cough, almost, false, officer, soft, stalk, halt, faucet, saucer, caution, lawyer, awesome, stall, crawl, awful, because.

Friday, February 12, 2010

February 15th, 2010

Hi Parents,
Just letting you know that we will be having school on Monday the 15th. This is a snow make-up day so we won't be missing any Spring Break...as of right now.

Enjoy your weekend.

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

New Look on Reducing Fractions

Hi everyone. Our class discovered a pretty cool and easy way to reduce fractions.
Look at the image below to get a general idea.






















Reminder: It may not work for all of the fractions....
so be careful.

Signing the planners

HI there!
Just a reminder to PLEASE SIGN OR INATIAL STUDENT PLANNERS EACH NIGHT. This way I know that you, the parent, have seen the student's work and know that they have completed the assignments.
Thanks,
Mr. Gordon

Monday, February 8, 2010

ATTENTION!!!!

Report Cards have been sent home with student planners (2/8/10). Please make sure you review over your child's grades/conduct.
Only return the Report Card Envelop. The Report Card is for you to keep.

Re: The week of 2/8/2010

Hi everyone,
It seems like ages since we've been here at school, what with the weather being nasty and cold. I hope all of you are staying warm and working hard. Here are the things we will be working on this week.

Reading: We are continuing our Chocolate Touch Theme. Later this week we will be writing to different chocolate companies to see if they would send us any freebies! Free is good! The students are also noticing the difference in certain types of chocolate. We are working on Inferring with the information that we know. This is helping us to make an educated guess.

Math: Fractions are the name of the game this week. We are working on reducing fractions as well as finding missing numerators and denomanators to make our fractions equivalent. We will hopefully be playing a fraction math game later this week to help us better understand comparing fractions.

Writing: Our writing menus are out and the students are going to start working on those. We are also working on our in class Young Author's Books. This is a project that we will do in school. The Writing Menus will be done in class as well.
Writing Menus are due: March 23

Spelling this week focuses on changing singluar words to plural form by adding an --ves, --ies, or --es
The words for this week are: leaf, leaves, wolf, wolves, potato, potatoes, roof, roofs, family, families, library, libraries, journey, journeys, hero, heroes, ditch, ditches.

Please Remember that all assignments are due the next day. If assignments are failed to be turned in, then it is the student's responsibility to make it up and turn it in to me.