Inspiration!

Our inspiration came from many places today!


Sergeant Cross visited with our first official D.A.R.E. lesson on tobacco use. He talked to us about the negative health effects of smoking. Since we are all still young, it is important to know that tobacco will affect our growth and development if we would choose to use it. Cigarettes contain 200 known poisons, and one powerfully addictive substance called nicotine. Of the nearly half a million people who die each year from tobacco use, most of them began using it before the age of 18! (It is illegal to sell tobacco products to anyone under the age of 18.) Unfortunately, there are nonsmokers who die each year from breathing other people's smoke! We need to resist any temptation to smoke or use tobacco.

Mr. Pietras worked our bodies in Phys. Ed. class today! We have been learning how to play volleyball in his class! He has also been encouraging our participation in the upcoming Jump-a-thon, which will be next Friday afternoon. Please remember to submit your forms and any collected money to participate in this worthwhile fundraiser for the Heart Association.

Mrs. Mac was excited to receive the last few books we were waiting for to begin Good Night, Maman. We each received a book and role assignment for next Thursday's discussions in McD's Cafe.

Our new Promethean board was hooked up by our Technology Department today! We are excited to use it for our lessons next week! When we walked into class today, it was lit up and ready to go! Mrs. Mac spent some time playing with it today during our related arts classes.

Mrs. Haddox continued to pound away at measurement today! We used our protractors to practice measuring angles. We learned about acute, right, obtuse, and straight angles. We also identified and classified polygons. Using the Promethean Board, we solved problems on angles and drew polygons.


Since today was lab day, our groups had a full period to work on our assigned U.S. President for kidblog. Mr. Abbondanza is very interested in our blogs, so we won't be the only ones visiting each others' blogs to read and type comments. Mr. Abbondanza will be leaving his comments as well!

Our third and final Benchmark tests for Math and Reading are being given within the next two weeks of school. Then, we will be getting our minds in gear for the PSSA Tests! Bring it!

Homework:
Language Arts - Quizzes will be on Tuesday for the assigned words and story about Elizabeth Blackwell. Read pages 1-45 (Chapters 1-9) in Good Night, Maman. Complete your assigned role for next Thursday.
Social Studies - Kidblog assignment is due on Tuesday!'
Math- R 9-6 and R 9-6

NO SCHOOL ON MONDAY, DUE TO OUR OBSERVANCE OF PRESIDENT'S DAY! DON'T FORGET TO SELL YOUR SARRIS CANDY TO SUPPORT OUR SPECIAL PROGRAMS AND EVENTS AT N.S.I.S.

Learning from Mr. Ottenheimer

For the past two years, Mr. Fritz Ottenheimer has visited our McD's Cafe to share his story of living in Nazi Germany. He spoke about living in Germany when Adolf Hitler came into power, and how things began to change for the Jewish people. Last year, when Mr. Ottenheimer visited, we filmed him. His story is so important, and we didn't know how much longer he'd be able to visit and share his experience. Today, as a kick-off to our new story, Good Night, Maman, we watched a bit of his story. Mrs. Mac also read the first few short chapters of Good Night, Maman. Mr. Ottenheimer helped us to understand why our story's characters would have been fearful and hiding in an attic. We are anxious to begin this new novel and learn more about this historical time period.

In Reading, we were dramatic actors reading our story, Elizabeth Blackwell: Medical Pioneer! Both classes did an excellent job, reading as the characters and projecting our voices. Everyone seemed to enjoy acting.

A review of complete, simple and compound predicates was the topic in Grammar today. We practiced identifying sentence parts and completing sentences that were incomplete.

Math classes reviewed multiplying and dividing fractions on the Promethean Board. Mrs. Haddox was impressed with all of our hard work. Room 204 started to identify the four different kinds of angles and their degrees. Tomorrow and next week, we will be covering different aspects of Geometry!

Homework:
Grammar - Page 51 in Grammar Practice book.
Social Studies - Continue your kidblog assignment relating to your assigned U.S. President.
Math: Correct problems missed on worksheet and turn in for a homework grade.
204 only: Plane Figures and Angles worksheets
REMEMBER TO SELL YOUR SARRIS CANDY!

Divide and Conquer!

Math classes today learned to multiply and divide fractions. We learned that it is a lot easier to multiply fractions than it is to add them. When you divide fractions use the reciprocal of the second number and multiply!

We also reviewed some geometric ideas of point, line, ray, and line segments. We used the Promethean Board to illustrate our definitions. Review pages 472 and 473 in your book for more help.

In Reading, we learned about some new words that we would be seeing in Elizabeth Blackwell: Medical Pioneer. We even learned the meanings of a couple French words! Our new story is a play, and we read the story today. Tomorrow, we'll try to act it out!

We worked a bit on our U.S. President Blog assignments today. The site was a little slow today, but many of us were able to accomplish a lot. Everyone seems a bit excited about little facts that are surprising about our presidents.

In Learning Center stations this afternoon, we worked on PSSA Reading vocabulary with the game of BINGO, exercises for angles and measurement on thatquiz.com, leveled reading practice for drawing conclusions, and teacher-directed activities for converting fractions to decimals and percentages.

Homework:
Math: R 5-2 and P 5-2, R 5-6 and P 5-6, and R 9-1.
Reading: Practice book page 102 for review of new vocabulary words.
Social Studies: Continue Kidblog assignment
SHARE NEW FUNDRAISER INFORMATION WITH YOUR PARENTS (Sarris Easter Candy).

We Are All Mixed Up!

Mrs. Haddox reviewed adding and subtracting mixed numbers today! It is important that we understand how to borrow from whole numbers and create fractions. Many of us need to TAKE OUR TIME and SHOW OUR WORK!! Sometimes we work too quickly and think we have the correct answer and do not. :) Mrs. Haddox slowed us down today!

Today, in Reading, we went over our Benchmark #2 Test with a fine tooth comb. Each item was discussed thoroughly after reviewing each short story. We worked together to give reasons for the best answers and talked about the choices we could quickly eliminate. Volunteers read the answers to their prompts to give examples of what it takes to get a 3/3. We are working hard to strengthen our skills!

Each one of us drew a U.S. President's name for a new Kidblog assignment in Social Studies. We are searching for information about our assigned president's background and accomplishments. We will then blog about it and read each others' blogs! The room was buzzing at the end of the day about interesting facts each student was finding about their president.

Homework:
Math: Graded page 22, 7-22
TALENT SHOW FORMS ARE DUE WEDNESDAY!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Team Enterprise wishes everyone a Happy Valentine's Day! We celebrated our friendships at the very end of the day by exchanging valentines and treats! Everyone deserves a treat now and then. We will enjoy reading our friends' messages.

In other exciting news...Mrs. Mac had her Promethean board installed today! Yay!! She thought it was a great Valentine's Day present! We are looking forward to using it for our lessons!


In Language Arts, we practiced our skill for the week - Drawing Conclusions. To draw a conclusion means to make a decision or form an opinion about what we read. We learned that our conclusions may not always be correct, but they should be sensible. In other words, they should make sense based on the facts and details in the story and our own experience. By applying this skill, we are thinking readers! As the week goes on, we will continue to apply this skill, especially when reading our new story about Elizabeth Blackwell.

Our new spelling list is a bit tricky! We need to review these words nightly! One way is to play the games on Spelling City (see link to the right).

In Writing, we continued to revise and type our business letters. We hope to finish these final drafts tomorrow.

A new Kidblog assignment is coming tomorrow! It will relate to Social Studies and the upcoming observance of President's Day! We will learn a lot about our presidents from blogging and visiting our peers' blogs.

In Math we continued to perfect our ability to work with operations involving fractions.

Homework:
Language Arts - Share "Family Times" and complete spelling practice "Trace +2".
Math - R and P 4-5 and 4-6
Tech Ed. - Your c-layer is due tomorrow.
Phys. Ed. - If you want to participate in the Jump-a-thon, please bring in your pledge form envelope.