Monday, February 22, 2016

Week 8 Overview

Hello!

I'm afraid I've been rather neglectful of this blog of late. Fear not, this neglect is merely a sign that classroom life is bustling and happy, and it expands to take up all of my time!

Our field day is coming up! On March 10th, the Archway students will compete in a half day of ancient Greek and modern-day Olympic themed events such as baton relay races, shot put and more! Students will be creating ancient Greek cuffs to wear during their competitions. Please send toilet paper and paper towel rolls to school for them to prepare and decorate in Art class. Coach Cook has asked me to let you know that we are looking for 15-20 volunteers to help organize and facilitate the athletic events. The day will be split up into two parts with grades K-2 participating in the morning followed by grades 3-5 participating in the afternoon. Volunteers will receive early communication regarding the events and need to be available for a walk-through 30-45 minutes prior to the event. Please follow this link to sign up: http://www.signupgenius.com/go/30e084fada62ca2f85-athletic. Please email Coach Cook with any questions: dcook@archwaylincoln.org.

In the classroom, we're wrapping up our unit about Arizona history with a quiz this Thursday. We've enjoyed exploring Arizona's exciting past with our students! In Science, we're exploring magnetism and the properties of magnets. This is an interesting unit because we are able to do a lot of hands-on demonstrations and experiments in the classroom. Today, the students used magnets to make sand move across paper without touching it! In Literature, we're finishing a two-week unit on poetry. For the rest of the quarter, we'll be studying short stories and plays and getting comfortable with story structure, theme, plot, and setting in these contexts. In Math, our scholars were thrilled today to finally begin subtracting decimals. Ms. Walls and I so enjoy our students enthusiasm for new mathematical concepts!

Have a great week!

Tuesday, February 2, 2016

Quarter 3, Week 5

Hello!

We have another full week ahead of us! On Thursday, we will have our first Arizona History quiz, which will cover Arizona geography, flora, and fauna. On Friday, we will have a Chemistry test. We've been really enjoying our Chemistry unit, since it has provided a lot of opportunities to hone our scholars' observation and prediction skills through experiments and demonstrations.

In Math, we've started to explore how to manipulate decimals. Our scholars have become fairly comfortable with decimals over the past week and this week, they will be putting their knowledge to the test by adding and subtracting decimals. In Literature, we will be reading a good bit of Prince Caspian, in preparation for our final Prince Caspian test next week.

Ms. Walls and I are very excited about what we're learning in Language Arts. Our students are writing a 3-paragraph essay over the course of this and next week. They will be learning how to edit their own work and how to provide good peer review in class. We're so looking forward to reading everyone's finished product!

Have a great week!