Curriculum Update - 10/10/2006

• Writing - The narrative, the major writing assignment of the first quarter, was due last Friday. I will still accept them late through this Friday. We'll be spending more time talking about the daily writing journal, what makes a good paragraph, and how I'll be grading them for the report card.
• Reading - We're working on the La Bamba vocabulary. We'll also start reading Michelle Kwan this week.
• Spelling - Compound Words
• Grammar - Word Roots: -struct- and -rupt- and later this week: Singular and Plural Nouns
• Math - We have finished Unit One, which is place value and adding and subtracting with whole numbers and decimals. We have begun Unit Two, which is Algebra with addition and multiplication, which means subtraction and division by default. We'll review some basic concepts, including averages: mean, median, and mode, in chapters 7 and 8, but we won't study every lesson or take the tests for those two chapters.
• Science - We have finished Chapter 1 in Unit B and have begun Chapter 2, on weather. The students will get their Chapter 1 tests back tomorrow.
• Health - We are starting with some lessons on bullying. The first lesson was last Tuesday when I was absent. We had some good discussion today, so we didn't finish the lesson I had planned, but it was time well spent. We'll probably continue our discussion next week.
• P.E. - Mr. T is giving the students a taste of the fitness test they'll be taking in the spring. So, don't be surprised if I start giving some push-ups and sit-ups for homework.