Sulima's Scoop - Week of December 1st

Weekly Reminders:

*Parent Teacher conferences Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.

*Lesson 13 spelling pretest on Monday.

*Report Cards given out on Tuesday.

*Drury Lane field trip on Wednesday. Please dress nicely.

*Wheel of Wisdom assembly on Wednesday.

*John Lynn - Appalachian Trail Assembly on Thursday.

*Lesson 13 spelling test on Thursday.

*Thursday we will be following a Friday schedule. Be prepared for music class.

*Lesson 3 science quiz on Thursday.

*No school on Friday.

*Our chapter 8 science test will be on Wednesday, December 10.

*Last day to turn in gifts for cancer patient family and/or Family Shelter Services will be on Wednesday, December 10.

Please turn in permission slip for Tivoli field trip as soon as possible.

Classroom Happenings:

Science-Our focus this week will be on fossils. This will be the last lesson in our study of Earth Science. Our test on chapter 8 will be on Wednesday, December 10.

Social Studies-We will finish our Northeast region scrapbook on Monday. Students will be turning these in on Tuesday for their first region grade. On Tuesday, we will begin our study of the Southeast. Our focus will be on the land of the southeast.

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Math-We will continue working on long division this week. On Monday, we will work with problems that have zero in the quotient. On Tuesday, we will divide larger numbers. We will not have math on Wednesday due to the field trip. Thursday, the children will work on finding averages. Next week, we will finish this chapter by learning short division. Our test on Chapter 5 will be on Wednesday, December 10 or Thursday, December 11.

Spelling-We will be working on words with "aw" this week. Please help your child practice their words in cursive.

English-I will be meeting with each child on Monday to review their enrichment choices for our new unit on verbs. We will also do one lesson this week on action verbs.

Reading-We will continue A Christmas Carol this week. The children will be summarizing the story by focusing on the sequence of events. We will also work on vocabulary. The words are very challenging in this novel. Please have your children review the words each night. We will have a vocabulary quiz during the week of December 8. The children will be receiving a reader's theater script, of A Christmas Carol, early in the week. We will read this together on Tuesday, December 9.

Prairieview School Service Project

Prairieview School families recognize the great many things we have to be thankful for as the holidays approach. We also know the importance of good character. We understand that responsible citizens of a community help those in need, and caring people sympathize with the hardships of others. Therefore, we would like to share the joys of the holiday season with those less fortunate than us.


Our efforts will benefit two organizations:
1) Families of cancer patients who struggle financially
2) Family Shelter Service (supporting victims of domestic violence)


Cancer Family Collection: We are collecting for a family of 3. There is an eight year old girl (Janaia), 5 year old boy (Nick), and Mom. The eight year old girl has cancer.
Donation ideas:
*New toys, games, books, puzzles, sports equipment, jewelry, and other accessories.
*Popcorn tins or holiday treat/candies
*Gift Cards (Jewel, Meijer, WalMart, Target, JC Penney, etc)
*Check made out to Center Cass School District or cash are also wonderful donations.
Please wrap (or put in gift bag) gifts. Put a post-it note on each gift indicating the contents and the recipients first name.

Family Shelter Service Collections:
Donation ideas:
• New toys, games, books, puzzles, sports equipment, and jewelry/other accessories*
• Warm gloves and hats
• Gift Cards
• Cash or Check (made payable to Family Shelter Service)
*More gift ideas at http://www.familyshelterservice.org/pdf/holidayshoppe2008.pdf
Gifts should not be wrapped – clients of the shelter will be “shopping” for their children at a Holiday Shoppe provided by Family Shelter Service. If you would like to volunteer to help at the Holiday Shoppe, please contact Kathy Vorel at (630) 221-8290 ext. 115 or kvorel@familyshelterservice.net


Donations must be at school by Wednesday, December 10th!

THANK YOU!!!

**Please visit last week's blog, to check out what is happening in our classroom.**

Sulima's Scoop - Weeks of November 17 & 24

Weekly Reminders:

*Lesson 12 spelling pretest on Monday, November 17.

*Roller Skating Party on Tuesday, November 18, 4:00-6:45.

*Review for English test on Wednesday, November 19 & Thursday, November 20.

*Chapter 5 open book/notes Social Studies test on Thursday.

*English test (nouns) will be on Friday, November 21.

*Lesson 12 spelling test on Friday, November 21.
*End of first trimester on Friday, November 21.

*No spelling lesson during the week of November 24.

*Open book lesson 2 science quiz on Tuesday, November 25.

*No school on November 26, 27, & 28.

Plan Ahead:

*Parent-teacher conferences on December 1-3.

*Report cards go home on Tuesday, December 2.

*Drury Lane field trip on Wednesday, December 3.

*John Lynn - Appalachian Trial Assembly on Thursday, December 4.

*No school on Friday, December 5.

Announcing Prairieview 2008-2009 Yearbook. Order your yearbook today!!! The cost of the yearbook is $10.00 and make payments to Lifetouch. Order deadline date is December 1, 2008. No orders will be accepted after that date. Parents just a reminder-- Prairieview yearbooks are not paid for at registration. Please place your order now. Yearbook order forms went home with your child on November 13th and there a few extra envelopes available; please try not to lose them. If your child loses it, you can send an envelope with the following information on it: student’s name, teacher’s name and grade level along with a check made payable to Lifetouch for $10.00. It is very important that you put the information on the envelope; Lifetouch does not know who your child’s teacher is. There will be a limited supply in June. Order Today!!!

Weekly Happenings:

Science-We will focus on what causes changes to Earth's landforms. We will begin by looking at the layers of the Earth. Our explorations this week will also cover volcanoes and earthquakes. We will also learn about deposition and how wind & waves make changes to our Earth.

Social Studies-We will finish chapter 5 this week. Our final lesson looks at cities in the Northeast. The children will take an open book/notes test on chapter 5 on Thursday. We will review in class on Wednesday.

Accelerated Math-We are now moving into chapter 5. We will move through this chapter slowly. We will cover the following lessons before Thanksgiving break: relating multiplication and division, order of operations (Please Meet Dear Aunt Sally), using mental math to divide, using compatible numbers to estimate, divisibility rules, and dividing by 1-digit divisors.

Spelling-Our spelling unit this week works with adding 'ing' and 'ed' to verbs that end in y. Please have your child practice both forms for each word. This will be the last spelling test for first trimester.

English-Our last lesson on nouns will be on Tuesday. We will review plural possessive nouns. A group of students in our class have been working on making noun board games. We will play these games on Wednesday and Thursday to review for our test. The test will be on Friday, November 21. Enrichment will be due the day of the test. The test on nouns and enrichment will be included in second trimester grades.

Reading-The children will need to bring their book club books and completed discussion sheets to school on Tuesday. The clubs will meet for approximately 30 minutes to discuss the first 1/3 of their book. In class, we will be working with another story from our anthology called The Boss of the Plains. During the week of November 24, we will begin our study of The Christmas Carol. The children will also have their second book club discussion on Tuesday, November 25.

Sulima's Scoop - Week of November 10

Weekly Reminders:
*Lesson 11 spelling pretest on Monday.
*Pointsettia orders are due on Monday.
*No school on Tuesday due to Veteran's Day.
*Wednesday we will follow a Tuesday schedule.
*Lesson 11 spelling test on Friday.
*Book donations collected through Friday.



Plan Ahead:
*Roller skating party on Tuesday, November 18, 4:00-6:45.
*First trimester ends on Friday, November 21.
*Thanksgiving Break - Wednesday, November 26 through Friday, November 28.
*Parent/Teacher conferences the week of December 1.
*Report cards will be sent home on Tuesday, December 2.

Classroom Happenings:
Science: We will begin chapter 8 this week. This chapter focuses on landforms. The children will be creating landform models and a landform picture dictionary this week. Our quiz on lesson 1 will be on Friday, November 14.

Social Studies: We will continue to discuss the people of the Northeast. Abolitionism and the Women's Suffrage Movement will be our main focuses for the week. The children will also need to turn in their immigration interview by Friday.

Accelerated Math: The children will review all the concepts from chapter 4 on Monday. We will take a chapter 4 test on Wednesday. This test will only cover: the properties of multiplication, estimating products, multiplying multiples of 10, 100, and 1,000, and multiplying by 1-digit, 2-digit, and 3-digit numbers. We will move onto chapter 5, dividing by 1-digit numbers, on Thursday.

Spelling: We will cover lesson 11 this week. The children will practice adding "er" and "est" to adjectives that end in "y". Please have them practice both the "er" and "est" formation of each word at home. I will be mixing them up on the test.

English: Our unit on nouns will continue. This week our lessons will focus on irregular plural nouns and singular possessive nouns. We will finish the lessons on Tuesday, November 18. The class will review on Wednesday and Thursday. Our test will be on Friday, November 21.

Reading: The children will find out their book club selection on Monday. I will try to give each child their first or second choice. The children will be reading histrorical fiction novels. Most of the reading of this novel will be done at home or during relaxed reading. The children will bring home a calendar of book club meeting dates and assignments. Book Club discussion sheets and books must be at school on the day of the discussion. In class we will work with a story called Tomas and the Library Lady. Our reading strategy is summarizing, and our focus will be on putting events of a story in sequential order.

WORM RACE RESULTS

Wow! The children had some fantastic looking racetracks. I could tell they thought very carefully about what variables would be best to use to help encourage their worms to the finish line.

And now...what you have all been waiting for...the RESULTS:

1st Place: Zack's worm

2nd Place: Karina's worm

3rd Place: Emma & Hannah's worms

4th Place: James' worm

All the worms and their owners did a wonderful job in the race!