Week of February 3-7

Upcoming Tests
Math test on Friday over adding and subtracting fractions and mixed numbers (A study guide will come home tomorrow with problems for your child to practice.)
On Thursday afternoon, I'm going to ask kids to study using 1 or more of the following websites: http://www.quia.com/cb/62195.html
http://www.softschools.com/quizzes/math/add_and_subtract_unlike_fractions/quiz3230.html
http://studyjams.scholastic.com/studyjams/jams/math/fractions/add-sub-unlike-denom.htm

Capitalization Quiz on Friday (The kids will be asked to write me a letter applying their knowledge of the capitalization rules.)

Orchestra Field Trip
Please be sure to return your Orchestra field trip permission form and money at your earliest convenience.

Visitor
A friend of mine, Jamie Strang, will be coming to visit us for a little bit tomorrow morning. She will be observing myself and Ms. Poteet as she is seriously considering returning to school for an education degree.

BOB
The BOB competition is coming up soon...dates to be announced. Please encourage your child to continue reading BOB books and taking quizzes onwww.bookadventure.com to assess their comprehension of each story. You can also quiz your child by asking them to name the author of each BOB title.

This Week's Learning Plan
Math: Today I showed the kids how to use quick common denominators to solve addition and subtraction problems with fractions and mixed numbers. This skill requires them to simply multiply the denominators by each other to make a common denominator. For the remainder of the week, we will review adding and subtracting fractions and mixed numbers and we will test on Friday.
Social Studies: We are now exploring the beginnings of government as we explore the U.S. Constitution.
Word Study: Several kids are still making errors in capitalization so we are going to continue practicing the capitalization rules with an assessment on Friday.
Writing: This week the kids will choose a Civil War battle or person of interest to begin gathering more research about in order to develop an essay on this person/battle's role in the Civil War.
Reading: We will be reading the final section of our literature circle books this week, completing our final jobs, and writing a reflection to culminate the experience.