Week of October 4

Happy Fall, Ya'll!  I don't know about you, but I'm ready for some cooler weather to start rolling in!  A sweatshirt, jeans, and flip-flops is my favorite outfit!  There are a few new pieces in the Classroom Happenings, so be sure to check out these pieces of info.  Here's what you need to know!

Classroom Happenings:

• Midterms.  These will be coming home next week.  This is a snapshot of your child's current grade.  At CBIS, your child will only receive official grades each semester.  If you haven't been keeping up on PowerSchool, this will let you know how they are doing in each of their classes.  As we are halfway through the semester, this is the time to buckle down and make sure your child has been turning in and completing all their work.  We have been working hard in the room to try and get items turned in, but extra assistance and reminders from home would be great!  These midterms will require a parent signature and will need returned to school.  
• Color Run.  Our school wide Walk-A-Thon will be happening this coming Friday, October 8.  All students will get to take a few laps around the track, then those who raised enough money to participte in the Color Run portion will have the chance to do so.  This should be a fun afternoon!
• Field Trip.  We will be taking a field trip on Friday, October 22 to the Eiteljorg Museum in Indianapolis.  There are some chaperone spots available if you are interested in going with us!  (We are pretty fun to hang out with!)  Email me if you are interested in spending that day with us!  A permission slip with all of the details will be sent home next week.  Look for this in your child's blue folder.
• Fall Break.  We.  Are.  So.  Close!!  This is coming up the week of October 11!  We will return to school on Monday, October 18.

Language:

All of the Narrative Writing pieces have been graded and rubrics were returned to the students showing how they scored in each of the different areas.  We had a conversation about how writing is a fluid process and good writers are never really done working.  The kids were told that they have the opportunity to look over their rubrics and scores and then do one final round of editing and fixing before a final grade is given.  Several have taken me up on the offer in an effort to better their grade and their final writing project.  Check in with your kid and see how they did.  Offer to see their writing and your advice on how they could improve it!  They would love to get your opinion on their story!

We are continuing to work through our story "Freak the Mighty."  This is going to take us a while to get through as we are spending 3 days on one chapter.  But, I'm loving the conversations we are having as the kids dig into the story and we see what continues to happen.  Don't forget that one night a week your child will be coming home with homework over the novel.  Keep checking in to make sure they are completing this.

Science:

This week we began our new unit over variables.  We have talked about the 3 types (independent, dependent, and control) and have done lots of practice identifying these variables in different types of experiments.  The past 2 days we took a look at some Mythbuster videos and identified these 3 variables in the experiments they did.  There were some pretty cool things we looked at!  We will continue to work with variables for the next 2 weeks, as we get the chance to try some experiments in class, too.  We will end our unit on variables the week we return from Fall Break, and will have a test over the subject area.

Thanks for reading through this info each week.  I hope it helps you to stay connected to what's happening here in the room as we continue moving through the year!  Continue to reach out with any questions!  Have a great weekend!

-Sarah