Weekly News
3/23-3/27
Please join us on Thursday, April 9 at 6pm in the Galaxy Pegasus classroom for our Spring Trip parent meeting. At this meeting we will share details about our destination and important information about the trip.
In Writing, Galaxians finished up their historical fiction short stories this week. The students had the chance to revise and edit their drafts, get feedback from a classmate and the teacher, and use these suggestions to add narrative and historical details. They did a nice job showing what they knew about Mexican history! Next week Galaxy students will begin working on a research report tying in with IS.
During Reading class, Galaxy students began the historical fiction Literature Circle cycle and had their first two meetings. We also introduced a new role sheet, the Investigator, whose job it is to research information to build the schema of the group. We continue to work on the skills to have an in-depth student-led discussion, like listening and building comments in a group conversation.
This week fifth graders moved from adding and subtracting decimals to multiplying decimals. We looked at strategies for placing the decimal in their final answer such as estimating the answer and count and place. To learn more about our new topic, please check out the family math letter. Sixth grade mathematicians continued their work with expressions as they began to look at the distributive property. They related the distributive property to areas of rectangles before they determined how an expression could be represented as a product of the factors or a sum. We then connected to an earlier concept of writing an expression with as few terms as possible as we combined like terms in order to simplify expressions.
Galaxians prepared for and took their final unit test in Integrated Studies this week! As usual, we also used this as an opportunity to review effective study and test-taking strategies. Next week, we will begin working on the culminating activity for the Mexico unit, which will be a research project that will result in a Google Earth presentation.
As a reminder, we are inviting parents and guardians in for a special STEM Celebration this coming Tuesday, 3/31, from 2:15-3:00 in the Galaxy classrooms. The students will be sharing some highlights from the science-themed Ecology and Chemistry units earlier in the year. You are invited to take your child home with you at the end of the unit day.
It’s hard to believe that the Spring Trip is just a little over a month away. If you are interested in possibly joining us as a chaperone on the trip, please email Tracey by Thursday, April 2nd.
Upcoming Events
Study Session: weekly on Wednesdays, 3:10-4 p.m.
Wednesday, March 25
End of Unit Mexico test
Friday, March 27
GrandFriends Day, RSVP here
Tuesday, March 31
STEM themed Unit celebration, 2:15pm
