Conferences Next Week and Plants Experiment

Friday, October 14

Dear Parents and Guardians,

I look forward to seeing you next week for conferences. Please find the conference schedule on the back of this letter. It is a tight schedule and I will do my best to make sure that we stick to it so everyone gets their allotted time. I will post the schedule outside the door and leave seats and work examples for you in the hall. See you soon!

Plants!

We are coming to the end of our first science unit on plants. Ask your child how they can tell if plants are related. We learned that squash and pumpkins are related and all of the citrus fruits came from the same fruit: the citron! Next week, students will be designing an experiment to see what conditions are best for growing seeds. We will be planting seeds in soil and soil mixed with our worm compost. If you have extra potting soil or the small 6 packs for planting seedlings, please send them in. Thanks!

Field Trip?

I am interested in doing a walking field trip on Monday, October 31 from 1:10 pm to 2:50 pm to the cemetery on Main Street to explore what we can learn about the history of Easthampton from the gravestones. Additionally, students will use what they have been learning in math to calculate ages. In order to do this trip, I will need at least 3 parent volunteers with updated CORI forms. Please send me a note if you are available and interested in coming to help. You can update your CORI at least one week in advance by coming into the office with your driver’s license.

Math

As you probably realized, students had their first math test yesterday. I will be sharing the results with you at conferences. Overall students did well and I know what we need to re-visit. Our next unit is on multiplication and division. Start to look for examples of this in everyday life with your child.

Sharing Next Week

Next week’s sharing will be about times that we have noticed or used math in our lives. As part of that, students can come up with a problem to ask their classmates. For example, if you are cooking with your child, you could point out that cups are measured in fractions. They could share that and ask their classmates how many ¼ cups are in 1 cup. Or maybe they figured out how long something lasted using their knowledge of time and elapsed time or maybe they helped add prices at the store.

Writing

Students are revising, proofreading, and publishing their first piece of writing. The final drafts should be ready for conferences so you will get to see their work. Since it is the beginning of the year, these final drafts will not be flawless, but they will represent all of their hard work. This week we talked about how to make sure your sentence is complete and how to fix spelling. Our next writing unit is personal narrative, which are true stories about ourselves. You might want to start brainstorming with your child about important memories.

Yours truly,

Jessica Harwood

#conferences #fieldtrip #halloween #multiplication #plants