Welcome Back from Spring Break

                                                                                    April 13, 2015

Dear Parents,

It was great to see so many of you on Thursday, April 2nd.  The students were so excited to show off their projects!!  I was very proud of the way they pulled the projects together.  The excitement the students had about presenting their projects was amazing!!

Spring Break was very restful.  It was nice to have some time at home to catch up on some neglected spring cleaning, planting, and organizing.  I especially enjoyed just spending time with my family.  Hopefully everyone had a great spring break!

Math
Our week started out with finishing up out work with graphing.  Students worked on creating their line plot graphs and wrote questions to go with their graphs.

We also explored the world of equal groups better known as multiplication!!  Students showed multiplication using manipulatives and through drawing pictures.  We are learning that when we use equal groups the equation can be written as repeated multiplication (3 + 3 + 3 + 3 = 12) or as a multiplication equation (4 X 3 = 12 or 4 groups of 3).  

Here are some pictures of the mathema-ticians from Room 5 exploring multiplication.

Math Homework
Mon.     Workbook pages 117-118
Tues.    Test B
Wed.     Workbook pages 125-126
 Thurs.  Workbook pages 129-130




Writing
All our writing was project related.  Students completed their research writing for their landform/bodies of water projects.  

Projects
All students completed and presented their landform/bodies of water projects. As I mentioned earlier, I was so thankful that many parents were able to come and check out the projects.  The students worked very hard and were excited to share their knowledge.  I am so proud of these kiddos!!  Here are a few pictures of students working on and sharing their projects.

Language
We able to squeeze a little bit of time to continue our work with prefixes.  We will be testing on prefixes after spring break.



With Spring Break behind us, we only have six weeks of school left.  I really can't believe how quickly this year has passed.  As we wind down our year we will continue to work hard learning and mastering new skills.  Here's wishing you a wonderful week!!

Sincerely,
Anne Bloomfield

Here's some important information from Mrs. Jackson!!

April 12, 2015

It feels great to be back!  I spent 3 days in San Francisco with my sister and my Mom; I haven’t been at Alcatraz and Union Square since I was 13 and on my 8th grade graduation trip!  

While I was in the city, my daughters were camping at Washoe “Lake” and present when Governor Sandoval made his announcement that Nevada is officially in a “drought”.  My youngest daughter took advantage of this drought and finally truly learned to ride her bike in Washoe Lake.  

It was an exciting week with the above two events, but as is always, many home projects are still left undone…there’s always summer….

I’m excited to get back to the daily learning, projects and collaboration that goes on every day at Oasis.

This week we will be bringing home new Reading envelopes with our daily reading assignments inside.  These will replace our blue folders and need to be returned daily.  For this last quarter, I am asking that parents sign their child’s nightly reading homework.  

In these envelopes, they should bring home their books and a sheet of paper with the date, a parent signature request, the pages assigned for that evening and possibly an assignment relating to what they are to read that night.  

I know firsthand that this time of year can be really busy with softball, baseball and other evening activities, so if reading isn’t possible one evening just write a note next to the box and I will make special arrangements with your child so that they can finish their reading assignment during a time other than study hall.  If your child does not bring their homework with a nightly signature and there is not a note attached (or an email or text sent to me), they will be doing their reading HW during study hall.    

This quarter we are focusing on collaborative discussions with our peers about texts, so it is important that we are all prepared for our discussion groups.  We are also focusing on doing close readings of what we are reading, so that we can discuss the details of what we have read when we come to group.  

I have picked some new books that I think your children will enjoy for the end of this year.  Please let me know if you have any questions.  Thank you!