September 25, 2007

Mrs. Napolitano's News
9-25-07
It is hard to believe that the first month of school is over. We are working hard in the class on getting organized. Please make sure your child keeps all notes or worksheets in their folder until we have finished the unit. Once we have taken the test your child may clean out their folder. Yesterday we had a presentation from our multi-needs teacher. Students than had the opportunity to sign up to be in
the peer buddy program. It was wonderful to see so many kids want to work with the multi-needs kids at lunch. Ask your child about the details of this program. We also have a Kids on the Block presentation tomorrow. This program is about Orthopedic Challenges.


READING
First book reports for September will be due Friday, Sept. 28th. Students should use their yellow folder to make sure they have everything needed on both sides of the index card. We are starting our India unit today in reading. This is a very fun and exciting unit and the students will be introduced to another country's culture and society. Today we are starting with a KWL chart. This chart will help the student comprise ideas of what the already know about India, what they want to know about India and finally later one, what they have learned about India. It is a way to introduce note-taking and collecting information for later use.

LANGUAGE ARTS
This week we will begin our new chapter on Nouns. A noun is a word that names a person, place, or a thing. Did you know that nouns also name feelings, thoughts, and ideas.

SOCIAL STUDIES
This week we watched a video on Jamestown. Ask your child what they learned from this video. We also worked on a mini-scroll book on Roanoke Island. Students learned about the Lost Colony of Roanoke by making a model and writing a story. This week we will evaluate the impact of the search for the Northwest Passage on the establishment of French & Dutch settlements in North America.

SCIENCE
Students have been working very hard at learning the parts of the skeletal system. On Thursday we will be playing SKELETAL BINGO to help us review for our science and spelling test. This week we discovered how joints move. See if your child can tell you five different kinds of joints and what they do for your body. Later on in the week students will conduct tests to measure their own reaction time. We will be recording and graphing our data. Skeleton test will be this Friday, Sept. 28. Students will need to spell and label the parts of the skeleton correct. Their test will look just like pg. 12 in their red folder.

MATH (Mrs. Napolitano's Class Only)
This week we worked on problem solving and decided when an estimate is enough to solve a problem. Next we estimated sums and differences of whole numbers and decimals. Last we will write equations to solve problems. There will be a checkpoint quiz on Thursday, September 27th on pgs. 58-59 in the textbook.

IMPORTANT DATES
10/8 No School- Columbus Day
10/5 Movie Night 6:30 p.m.-8:45 p.m.
10/13 Market Day Pick Up
10/17 Early Dismissal 11:00
10/18 Book Fair 6:45 p.m. - 8:00 p.m.