Students had the opportunity to see the Lincoln Pierce, author of the popular Big Nate series, in an assembly before Spring Break. He showed them how he comes up with his ideas as well as how he draws his cartoons for his books. He was very interesting!
This week another author/illustrator will be visiting Long. On Thursday, students will meet Debra Frasier, who has written and illustrated several books for children. Meeting different authors will hopefully encourage our little writers to keep working hard!
The MAP test, which is Missouri's standardized test that we take, will begin the week of April 21st. Since 5th grade is tested in Communication Arts, Math, and Science, our testing goes through the week of May 5th. During these three weeks, students will not be assigned homework. We highly encourage them to continue their nightly reading, but it will not be officially assigned. The goal is for students to relax and get a good night's sleep each night so they come in refreshed and ready for the test. Please make sure they eat a nutritious breakfast each day that we are testing so they do not get hungry in the middle of the test.
If your child is trying to earn the award for service hours, the minimum of 50 hours is due on April 11th. Let me know if you need any additional service logs.
Please ask your child if they need more dry erase markers. At this point in the year, many students are out of markers, so if needed please get them a few more to last until the end of the year. Thanks!
Currently in math, we are learning about measurement. An emphasis is place on measurement conversions for customary length, capacity, and weight, as well as metric length, capacity, and mass. We have learned several tricks in class to help keep all of the different measurements straight.
Memoirs are being wrapped up as we begin poetry in writing. Students enjoyed writing acrostic poems about themselves, as well as about other topics. At the end of the poetry unit, the students will make a book to hold all of their poems.
Our reading groups finished the books we were reading before Spring Break, and we are starting to do some test preparation for the MAP test.
In science, we have been learning about the solar system. The test over the unit is coming up on Wednesday, and students took home their study guide on Friday. Please make sure they study at home before the test. Next up, we will be focusing on simple machines and forces.
The students are always making neat things in art, and here is a sample of what they were working on recently. They all turned out really well!
