Week of February 13th

Hi Everyone,

     Congratulations to our Invention Convention participants. Several of our students entered projects into this year's contest. Rushil and Aryav won 1st place in the group projects. Saachi and Anaiya placed 3rd in the group projects.

     Congratulations also go out to our classmates that participated in the testing for Math Super Stars, Vivian, Aryav, Sidd, and Viraat. 

     Don't forget to go on to FunRun.com and get those pledges in!! We will have our Fun Run this Thursday at 11:15. Parents are invited to come and cheer us on!! We received our shirts today at school and I will hold them until Thursday morning. My homeroom students may come into the room when they arrive to school on Thursday morning to change into their shirts. 

     We will exchange our Valentines cards on Tuesday afternoon. A letter came home last week with all of our classmates names.

     This week in math we will learn how to add decimals. Students will be shown two strategies. One where they convert the decimals to fractions and then add. Then converting the fraction back to a decimal.  The second will be taking the decimals and lining them up in an algorithm and then adding, making sure to bring the decimal down into the answer. Once learning both strategies students will be free to choose the one that they like the most when completing their math work.
     We will also learn how money is related to decimals and fractions. Students will also practice giving change back. Which will lead us into subtracting decimals. Students will be able to use the strategies mentioned above for subtraction. We will complete our decimal unit next week. We will then move on to geometry and measurement. If your child does not have a protractor, you may want to purchase them one for our upcoming work.

     In science this week we will finish up our discussion of animal instincts and learned behaviors. We will begin learning the life cycle of flowering plants. Our study will include flowering plants (angiosperms) and nonflowering plants (gymnosperms).

    For this week's social studies we learn about the tensions in our state that led to the First Seminole War. We will also learn about Andrew Jackson and how he went from a commander in the Army, to Governor of Florida, to the seventh President of the United States.  

    Don't forget that President's Day is Monday so we have a long weekend!! 

     Have a great week!!
     Aesha