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Optimist Club Awards, originally uploaded by Christian Howd.

Zachary P. received the Youth Appreciation Award on Thursday for his excellent academic success and character in the face of difficult health circumstances. Great work, Zach!

Spelling: Students took a spelling and skill test today.

Cursive: Ten cursive sentences of at least seven words each are due Friday; this week’s assignment will be due Monday.

Reading: None today due to discussions about our Mackinac trip and working on our Mother’s Day project.

Writing: None today due to discussions about our Mackinac trip and working on our Mother’s Day project.

A collection of poems will be due into portfolios on Friday, May 16. The poems will be shared at a Poetry Slam at Border’s Book Store in June.

Math: None today due to discussions about our Mackinac trip and working on our Mother’s Day project. A math test over division will be on Tuesday.

Science: We took notes in our minibook about the sun and watched some video clips:

Social Studies: None due to library.

Behavior Update:

• Yellow magnets: 0
• Orange magnets: 0
• Red magnets: 0
• STAR Awards: 0
• Current Hours with No Orange Magnets: 21

Check your student’s Personal and Social Growth grade at SnapGrades to see if your student moved their magnet.

Notes:

• This week’s juice volunteers (full list): Coltin and Terence. Thanks for your generosity!
• View grades, assignments, attendance and even the report card at SnapGrades.
• Check out our class calendar to stay up-to-date.
• Visit our Mackinaw Field Trip page for more information on our May 9 trip.

Spelling: We reviewed contractions today; this will be the skill test on tomorrow’s spelling test.

Cursive: Ten cursive sentences of at least seven words each are due Friday; this week’s assignment will be due Monday.

Reading: Today was a reading day in Literature Circles; some groups worked on making connections and visualizing.

Writing: Students were introduced to writing poems with fragments:

Mackinac at 6 am

Sleepy children,
Twitchy eyes,
Giant bus,
“Oh, my gosh!”
Wobbly legs,
Grand Hotel,
Hungry people,
Lips drooling,
See the ferry,
People Sleeping,
Angry parents,
Bright and early,
Bus a’ rolling.

A collection of poems will be due into portfolios on Friday, May 16. The poems will be shared at a Poetry Slam at Border’s Book Store in June.

Math: We learned how to turn a remainder into a fraction. For example, in the problem, 126/5 = 25 R1, the answer could also be written as 25 1/5. Homework is to finish Journal pp. 156-157.

Science: We learned that the sun is 100 times larger than the earth and very, very far away. Homework is to finish Investigation Review p. 43.

Social Studies: We learned that land in Michigan was divided into parcels for people to buy after the War of 1812. It was difficult to get to Michigan until the Erie Canal was built.

Behavior Update:

• Yellow magnets: 0
• Orange magnets: 0
• Red magnets: 0
• STAR Awards: 2
• Current Hours with No Orange Magnets: 21

Check your student’s Personal and Social Growth grade at SnapGrades to see if your student moved their magnet.

Notes:

• This week’s juice volunteers (full list): Coltin and Terence. Thanks for your generosity!
• View grades, assignments, attendance and even the report card at SnapGrades.
• Check out our class calendar to stay up-to-date.
• Visit our Mackinaw Field Trip page for more information on our May 9 trip.

Spelling: Students practiced removing suffixes to form base words, and remembering what rule was used to add the suffix originally.

Cursive: Ten cursive sentences of at least seven words each are due Friday; this week’s assignment will be due Thursday due to our Mackinac trip.

Reading: Today was a discussion day in Literature Circles.

Writing: Today we discussed how using line breaks and “white space” can help a reader to focus on certain important words at a time. This poem,

Grandpa’s shoes were big and bruised, scratched and scuffed. They’ve been places.

would look better if line breaks were used to arrange the words on the page:

Grandpa’s shoes
Were big and bruised,
Scratched and scuffed.
They’ve been places.

A collection of poems will be due into portfolios on Friday, May 16. The poems will be shared at a Poetry Slam at Border’s Book Store in June.

Math: None due to an extended science time.

Science: We reviewed what we had learned about the moon and earth, wrote notes in our minibooks, and watched some video clips about the moon, gravity and meteorites.

Social Studies: We learned about how the British supplied weapons to the Native Americans and attacked American supply ships, causing the War of 1812. Several battles were fought in Michigan, but the war ended when the Americans won control of the Great Lakes.

Behavior Update:

• Yellow magnets: 3
• Orange magnets: 0
• Red magnets: 0
• STAR Awards: 2
• Current Hours with No Orange Magnets: 18

Check your student’s Personal and Social Growth grade at SnapGrades to see if your student moved their magnet.

Notes:

• This week’s juice volunteers (full list): Coltin and Terence. Thanks for your generosity!
• View grades, assignments, attendance and even the report card at SnapGrades.
• Check out our class calendar to stay up-to-date.
• Visit our Mackinaw Field Trip page for more information on our May 9 trip.