Thank you for those who sent in additional supplies!


Please check the Peek of the Week as many new dates have been added for the next few weeks.


The Science Fair Deadline is next Wednesday.  Please scroll down to last week's update if you need to download the form!


The deadline for the Scholastic Book Club order is next Friday.  Please consider making a purchase to help buy books for our classroom.


Snacks--I am out of extra snacks.  Please ask your child if they have used our extra snacks before and consider sending in a few items to replenish our supply.

Dear Parents,

I feel like there is so much information to share right now.  Please read this update carefully!

Publishing Party Date Correction

On the Peek of the Week, I listed the publishing party for the Animal Habitat Project as February 1st.  That was last year’s date! Sorry!  The correct date is Friday, February 7th from 9am to 10am.  I hope that with advance notice many of you will be able to come to the event!

Research for Animal Habitat Project

The resources your child will use to research their animal from a Georgia habitat are due this Monday, January 13th.  If you don’t have access to a printer, please copy and paste the resources into a word document and email it to me and I’ll print it at school.  Our school library has a lot of books on general or exotic animals, but there isn’t a book on many of the animals that were assigned.  If you find a book for your child at the Cobb Library, you can sent that in as well.  We will use these resources to research and write a informational report at school.  Your child will create a diorama habitat for their animal at home.  It is due Thursday, February 6th.  This project will be in place of this month’s book report. 

School Supplies

At the beginning of the year, I explained that I wanted my students to practice responsibility by being in charge of their own school supplies.  This decision came because, over the years I’ve watched what happens when a student doesn’t have ownership of his or her supplies.  Students, who picked out a beloved-color of scissors, had to use whichever scissors their teacher assigned to their table.  One student, who used his eraser as a toy has no consequences as he went through his table’s entire supply of erasers. 

I’d like to share what I’ve seen so far this year.  I’ve seen many students forget to write their names on their pencils.  I’ve watched those beautiful pencils lie forlorn under desks for an entire day.  I’ve witnessed students allow a perfectly sharpened crayon to stay under their chair until it gets stepped on, broken, and thrown away.  Topless glue sticks have rolled into corners only to be found by the afternoon sweeper.  Perfect, nameless scissors have died waiting in the classroom lost and found bin.  Maybe you have witnessed similar experiences in your home????

Today, I met with each student and they told me the current status of their school supplies.  Tomorrow, I’m sending home a list of what your child needs to finish out the school year.  There are many students who have kept their surplus supplies carefully zipped in their named bag in my storage closet.  There are also some who are currently using their neighbor’s supplies.  I warned the students that their parents may not be happy about replacing items that should have lasted throughout the year.  You may feel that they need to use their allowance or Christmas money to purchase the replacements.  If you want to have them write their names in sharpie on each item before it gets to school, that will be great too!  I always tell them to do it, but it’s hard to check pencils for the entire class (until they are found on the floor of course).  I have a feeling that the students will show greater responsibility with this batch of supplies.  I appreciate your partnership in this experiment!

Scholastic Book Club

It’s time for another Scholastic Book Club order!  Your child will bring home two catalogs tomorrow.  Here is the online access info:   scholastic.com/readingclub
Class Activation Code: M9H66. 
There are a lot of great books for great prices.  If you log in to the website and look at all the catalogs available, you can check out the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th grade forms.  Charlotte’s Web is just $1 in the 3rd grade catalog and Sideways Stories from Wayside School is just $1 in the 4th grade catalog.  If you’d like to donate one or both of those titles to my classroom, I’d love to have multiple copies for literature circles later in the year!  The deadline to order is January 24th. 

Parent Survey

There is a parent survey coming home tomorrow.  KCSMA is looking at future plans regarding the 6th grade program.  Since there are no plans to add a 7th and 8th grade, the school is interested in how many families will still plan to send their child here for 6th grade.

Science Fair

The KCSMA Science Fair is February 18th!  I hope all my students will participate!  The Please check out the guidelines in the document below.

Welcome back to school and 2014!  I hope everyone enjoyed their extra day of vacation!

Spelling
Since we lost an additional day to prepare, we will postpone our new Spelling List until next week.  In place of learning new spelling words this week, please use your spelling time to practice the review lists.  On Friday, we will play a whole-class, spelling review game!  Starting next week, our spelling list will be adding common suffixes to root words.

Reading
Reading should be a daily activity!  However, we will not keep a log this week.  The daily reading log will resume next week.

Math
This week, we will start Module 11, which is a continuation of division.  Please work on memorizing your multiplication facts each night!  Each Friday we will complete a timed multiplication fact quiz.  Each child will receive a reward when they learn all their facts, and when the entire class meets our goal, we will have a class reward!

Science
We are learning about Animals from Georgia Habitats!  Students will have a major project for this unit.  First, students will research their assigned animal at home (most information is found online).  A research guide will be given out with the animal assignment.  Research will be due Monday, January 13th.  Second, students will write a research paper on their animal at school (as long as they use their class-time wisely).  Third, students will construct a diorama representation of their animal in its natural habitat.  Finally, parents are invited to the classroom publishing party on February 1st to view all students’ habitat projects and research papers.