Happy October

Hey All,

October is a great month and I only wish the weather would cooperate. I am a sun lover but I am ready for the fall weather.

Math
We just finished up Unit 1 and we are moving onto bigger and better things. We will be looking at numbers and something called minimal collections. Which essentially has us looking at numbers and the groupings of numbers. Which of course leads us to (duh da da duh) carrying and borrowing in the traditional algorithm. We will be learning to add and subtract larger numbers and we will need some more efficient ways to add and subtract than tally marks. We also have started looking at multiplication as repeated addition. I am not going to link the home connection website for Unit two. The reason is that we have changed Unit 2 so much that I don’t think it would match up with their learning. It used to be mostly about the base 4 and base 5 counting systems. It is confusing so I will link the next unit to the bridges website.

Writing
We are currently working on our Monster writing piece. This is a tough task for many of our writers because we are working in paragraphs. These paragraphs all have different requirements and they have to do all of these things while telling a story. They are doing a great job so far. They each have an outline of the story, an illustration and a rough draft of an intro paragraph. We will be finished with these stories by October 28th. The reason we will be finished is because the stories will all be published. I have to hand them in by Halloween in order to get them back by the 7th. You will have the opportunity to purchase one of the books if you would like one. They are very cool.

Quality Education Fair
Here is the flyer for the Quality Education Fair Hopefully it is a really nice day and you can go down to Pioneer Square to see what is going on. It is a great way to show Portland that we care more about our kids than their test scores.

Volunteering
Hey guys, if you are interested in coming into the classroom and volunteering I am looking for people to come in during Math worktime. I do it everyday, except Wednesdays, from 9:00 to 10:30. So right after drop off. I work with small groups of students and the rest of the class is busy working on their other jobs. I need someone to help keep the others focused on their tasks and purpose. If you would like to do this let me know.

Have a great week!