Iditarod and Ikidarod

I feel like I was just typing this newsletter.  This week was almost non-existent!  The kids read “Woodsong” in our reading series this week and next week we will read “Iditarod Dream” from the Harcourt Series and continue to learn more about the Iditarod from several different texts.  We will be following the race online each morning which begins on March 7th.   I am thinking about having our Ikidarod on March 6—13 depending on time and snowdays.

We are going have a dog sled building challenge.  Level 1 will be designing and building a sled at home with a parent, and level 2 will be bringing the supplies to school and building one with classmates here during a couple of building sessions.  Students may do both, as I would like to have all kids involved here at school, but want to allow them to go crazy at home too!  I am  in need of a one dog, dog sled for my Alaskan Husky and would be interested in paying a team some cash if they would like to sell me there sled to use and keep as an example for the future!  Nothing quite like a little cold hard cash as a motivator!  I will send home the description sheet next week, but basically the sky is the limit at home.  For designing and building sleds here there will be more guide lines.  I will be looking for some battery powered drills and a few small hand saws to borrow for the building sessions.  This will be a new adventure for us here at school.  I will be bringing my dog “Baloo” (Alaskan Husky) from home to pull and test the home and class built sleds, and we will do a human dog sled event as well.  We had a ton of fun last year and I apologize in advance for your kids all wanting to have dogs at home now!

Colonial Studies and Congrats on the Spelling Bee!

This week we will continue working on a few projects that we started earlier last week.  The kids chose to work on a colonial newspaper, do an iMovie news report, or design a fort for the French and Indian War.  We will be presenting this near the end of the week to our class mates.  We will also start reading from our Harcourt reading series about the Iditarod in preparation for following the race in March and our own iKidarod, that we did for the first time last year!  It was a ton of fun, we will do it a little differently this year.  More info coming soon!

Congratulations to Thadeus for first place at the Quincy fifth grade spelling bee and Riley for runner up!  It came down to just one word! 

CAMP MONEY:

Almost everyone is paid.  If you still owe for camp and want to break the payment up please let me know. 

I will be gone on Tuesday for a science training at the Van Andel Institute. .  The kids overall did a great job on our weekly reading assessment this week! Our class average was 91.3%! 

I can…

Describe some of the causes that led the colonists to want separate from England

Write to Persuade.

Use multiple strategies to solve division equations using decimals