Week 9: End of 1st Quarter

We had a terrific field trip despite the dreary weather!  The students learned about local history and environmental clean up and played a fun "Secret Spy" scavenger hunt.  We learned about Renewable energy and had opportunities to try our hand generating energy through solar panals and wind.  We had TONS of fun bowling, too.  A special thanks our parent chaperones for taking their day to be with us.  See photos below.


End of the Quarter/Conferences
Today marked the end of the 1st quarter.  What a blessing to already see your children's growth in faith and knowledge.  It has been a challenging time of sickness again, and I appreciate all of the help with your child at home to help keep up with absent work. 

I look forward to visiting with many of you about your child's progress at our conference on Thursday.  If you have not signed up yet - just login to Sycamore and click on My Family - My PT Conference.  If you are unable to attend that day, I will share your child's presentation including my comments.  Please follow up with me if you have other concerns.  Per administration's direction, conference times will not be rescheduled.  Please take a few minutes to help me prepare for conferences by following the link below.

Pre-Conference Form


Current Units:

Literature:  Completed our unit on Fiction/Nonfiction with a look at author's perspective, tone, inferences and symbolism.  We read a character sketch of Mark Twain written by his 13-year-old daughter, Susy.  This will lead into writing our own character sketches as we have finished viewing  The Prince and the Pauper.  (The kids loved this old black and white film!)

S.S.   We explored thematic maps and using global information systems which involve layering thematic maps to find information about physical features, climate, vegetation and how they affect population and economic activity.  Focus: US and CANADA world region.

TMath -  Tested on decimals and decimal operations last week.  Using fact families to understand how to use inverse operations to solve for a variable.  We have LOTS of math vocabulary to learn!

GMath - Completing Ch. 2 on solving 1 step algebraic equations with an emphasis on how to take a word problem and write an equation that follows the story plot.  Up next: Number Theory: Divisibility, Primes and Composites

Other 2nd Quarter highlights...
Reformation Study in Religion
Earth Science