May Day! May Day!

WOW! Can you believe MAY is here?! Time flies when you're having fun :)

We have wrapped up the drama unit! The students did a great job with their play presentations. Each group took a very simple play, modified the script to accommodate more or less characters, added stage directions, costumes, prop lists and set design. Their creativity ran wild! The scenery and costumes were very well detailed - down to the last crackling ember in a fire place, whisker in an animal mask, and fake facial hair to show their characters' ages. (I was also rather impressed with our students' repertoire of accents!) Way to go class - two very enthusiastic thumbs up :)

Our second to last unit of study in language arts this year will be Novels. As I mentioned in previous posts, students will be working in literature circles again. Thus, their typical homework assignments for reading/language arts will be to either read, complete a literature circle role, or answer a response question in their Reading Response Journals (RRJ). One of my fellow teammates, Ms. Saenger, has shared a great resource with me. It is a list of "Sentence Leads (or starters) for Reading Response Journals." I plan to have each student attach a copy of this inside his/her reading response journal to use as a resource for future journal writing assignments. I want to provide the students with a little more freedom in their journaling assignments, but I also want them to have some guidance as well. You'll see in this week's assignments that they are to write two free choice responses in their journal by Friday, May 6th. I expect students to still refer to their blue rubrics as a writing guide, and to select a "Sentence Lead" from the list to prompt their writing. Looking forward to reading and discussing these responses in group!

Students will have time during centers to work on their literature circle and reading response assignments, I hope this will help to alleviate the work load at home :)

This past week in math we've reviewed and extended our skills in finding fractions of a region and fractions of a set. This coming week we'll be continuing those skills, as well as identifying mixed numbers and improper fractions. With the 50th Anniversary Celebration and Strawberry Festival coming this Friday I will wait until next week to quiz these skills.

Monday we will have an assembly from the Arc of Frederick County. This presentation will provide students information on persons with disabilities. The Arc is such a positive part of our community, this should be a very informative presentation.

As I'm sure you've heard, Friday is Urbana Elementary School's 50th Anniversary Celebration and Strawberry Festival!! There will be all sorts of fun games and activities for families to participate in - including the sponge toss at the teachers (myself included - yikes!!). Hope to see all of you there!

Enjoy this lovely weekend :)

Hello and welcome back! I hope you and your families had a pleasant, relaxing spring break.

We will be wrapping up the drama unit this week, and moving on to novels next week. Please keep an eye out in your child's agenda books for potential prop and costume needs as they will be presenting their one-act plays at the end of this week. Not to worry - no shopping trips required :)

For the novel unit we will be following the literature circle model again as we did in the beginning of the year. There will be a packet that comes home with specific reading and comprehension assignments that will need to be completed. Any extra literature circle roles that are completed will be counted as extra credit.

In math we are continuing to study fractions and decimals. This unit should take us throught the next 3 weeks or so.

With spring upon us, and an increase in extra-curricular activities, I will be providing the students more time to work on assignments in class - and this includes homework. I hope this helps to alleviate the work load at home :)

I hope you have a great week - thank you for your continued support!