August 22

Back to School Night
BTSN is Wednesday, August 26 from 5-7pm. The classrooms will be open for you to visit with your child from 5-6pm. From 6-7pm there will be information from administration and the PCEA, along with treats, at the front of the school.

Free National Park Pass
Want to get into national parks for free? Check out this article for details. Wish I still had a fourth grader; I love Rocky Mountain National Park.

Volunteers
We will be starting classroom volunteers shortly. If you are able to help out, please click here to see this year's opportunities.

Classroom Jobs
Students applied for their job the first week of school and were hired and trained on Monday. They've started earning money. Each student's job will not cover the rent of their desk ($1000/month), so students are awarded bonuses to help them cover rent. (Payday and rent are on the first of each month.) When you visit us at Back to School Night, check in with your child to see how much money they've earned so far.

What are we learning?
Last week we spent some time discussing what World Class Outcomes are and figuring out what they mean. If you'd like to read more about the WCOs, you can visit the district's website.

To start the year, we are focusing on the following WCOs:

• Create meaning strategically in reading, writing, speaking, and listening and Evaluate how authors are strategic in creating meaning with more complex elements and complex text
• As we focus on this WCO, students are practicing strategies that good readers use and learning how to write quality sentences and paragraphs.
• Last week, students focused on making connections as readers and determining a text's theme as ways that readers can evaluate how authors strategically create meaning. 
• They also learned: the elements of a sentence, run-on and sentence fragments, capitalization rules, types of adjectives, and how to write more detailed sentences. These are all ways to create meaning strategically in writing. 
• Demonstrate the process of inquiry and Create a process to solve a problem
• Students are using the scientific method as one process to solve a problem and will be using the inquiry process through health content. 
• To practice the scientific method as an inquiry process, students did a paper airplane lab. 
• On Monday, we start a health unit, which will include exercise, hearing, the digestive system, and dental health. Students will choose a topic that they want to learn more about to practice the inquiry process. 
• In math, we are focusing on the WCO- Look for and express reasoning in repeated reasoning. 
• Last week, we focused on strategies to memorize our multiplication facts by looking at number patterns to help us with memorization tricks. This week, we begin chapter one in the math book, which focuses on place value concepts such as expanded/word/standard form and using place value knowledge to recognize patterns in numbers. 
• Your child may have a different teacher for math. We determined math classes by looking at math pretest scores and the math assessments your child took at the GTKY meetings. Math class placements were based on where your child will learn best based on the pacing of instruction. All classes are learning the same content; classes are paced differently to best match the learners in the classroom. 

Homework Reminders

• While most students did well on their spelling tests this week, there were a handful who didn't do so well and admitted they did not practice at home. Here's a link to this week's words. 
• The kids have been doing really well with their multiplication facts. They're working toward having their 1s, 2s, 5s, and 9s memorized by Labor Day and their 3s, 4s, 6s, 7s, and 8s memorized by conferences. Two kids in our room have already passed all of their multiplication facts. Congratulations Spencer and Natalie!

Here's a Quick Look at What We've Been Doing

- Playing "There are Rules"

- Making our PRIDE Posters

- "I've Been in  Your Shoes" to Learn More About Each Other

- Deconstructing the World Class Outcomes

- Sharing our Literacy Journals

- Marshmallow Tower Challenge

- Making Connections by Reading Kevin Henkes Books

- Paper Airplane Inquiry Lab