Greetings from Room 10 - Week 5

Dear Parents of Room 10,

It’s hard to believe that we are ending our fifth week of school, isn’t it?  The school year is so driven by the calendar that the weeks fly by.  Your children have settled into fifth grade like pros.  They are a wonderfully behaved and attentive group of children, and it is a pleasure to come into school every day.  They are very engaged in learning, and they are kind and caring children.  Being a teacher at Slingerlands makes me a very lucky guy!!

Working with the crayfish is proving to be a very interesting and exciting science unit.  I hope your child has told you that a few of our buddies have molted and their exoskeletons are on top of one of their huts. This week we discussed the difference between inherited and acquired traits.  We also marked the crayfish with my daughter’s nail polish.  In addition, the children experimented with food coloring to watch the crayfish breathe.  Be sure to ask him/her about this interesting experiment.  Within the next couple of weeks the children will be taking a crayfish vocabulary test, so beginning next week, you should see your child studying crayfish vocabulary as they prepare for a quiz.  Finally, the children took notes on our crayfish friends based on a Power Point I created. 

This week we celebrated “Farm to You Fest” in our classroom compliments of our room parents, Colleen Carroll-Barbuto and Margaret Taranto.  The children enjoyed testing a variety of locally-grown fruits and vegetables including cauliflower, carrots, snap peas, beets, apples and kiwi.  Believe it or not, most of the children insisted on seconds, and they especially loved the fresh beets.  They tallied their “likes” and “dislikes” and the afternoon culminated with the creation of banners with catchy phrases to encourage their peers to consider trying fruits or vegetables they might not have ever tried.

         In writing we have completed our third piece based on the “special object” your child brought to school.  Next week, the children will be responding to a writing prompt as an initial, baseline writing assessment…yes, another assessment!  In addition, the children have been invited to write a story that will be shared with the “Story Pirates.”  I have given them a story starter/organizer.  This is an optional writing assignment, but I have encouraged them all to give it a try.