January 8, 2016

Next week we have classroom assessments, I wanted to provide you with a schedule of the dates and types of assessments.

• Monday, January 11-students will be writing an opinion paragraph utilizing text that is given to them. They will prepare a rough draft and a final draft to turn in during class. The students will use a graphic organizer that they have used in the past and the structure is familiar to them.
• Wednesday, January 13th the students will be completing their reading assessment regarding cause/effect, idioms and prefixes.
• Thursday, January 14th we will have our vocabulary quiz and during the week we will be participating in some review games in preparation for it. We will also have a Check My Progress quiz in Math regarding perimeter and area. We have worked on perimeter this week and will be completing area before their quiz.

This week in your student's Friday Folder there is a Matter activity that they need to complete at home and return to school on Wednesday, January 13, 2016. That day we will participate as a class being scientists and detectives to use the clues provided to determine what the object is hiding in the bag using the clues that are provided. We will also participate in at least two science experiments that help us delve deeper into the States of Matter.

The students are also working on setting goals for the New Year in the areas or reading, math, writing and behavior. They are also recalling some of their favorite memories of 2015 and looking ahead to something they would like to do in 2016.

As a reminder:

• Reading logs are due every Friday. I will no longer accept reading logs that are turned in after Friday for the previous week. This is causing confusion regarding dates the reading log needs to include and which week they are completing it for. In addition if students turn in all of their reading logs for the month they will earn a Book It certificate which entitles them to a free personal pan pizza at Pizza Hut.
• Spelling packets are due every Thursday and therefore will no longer be accepted after Thursday.
• The second grading period ends on January 14th.
• No school January 15th and 18th.

If you have any questions regarding next week's activities please feel free to contact me.