Teton & Olympic Team: Week of February 4

The students enjoyed visiting with our 8th grade buddies last Friday. Everyone was able to share their gifts of self activities. We had a bunch of students that put their shoveling skills to good work!

We are nearing the end of our class read aloud, Wolf Hollow. We've discussed the many decisions Annabelle has made as an 11-year-old. She is one brave, smart, caring, and determined young lady. Annabelle is hoping to clear Toby of the accusations brought against him by Betty. Will her idea work? Along with enjoying the strong characters, we have all gone back in time to the 1940's, mended socks, baked pies, worked in the haymow, and attended school in a one room school house.

The students are working hard on their February vocabulary pages. The new and challenging vocabulary words include: bamboozled, reconnaissance, and ransom. It is hard work using these new words in our own sentences. Some kids received speeding passes as a reminder to slow down and double check their work. We will be continuing to work on synonyms and antonyms as well as prefixes and suffixes.

Students are busy writing letters back to their Ugandan pen pals. Our friends will be sure to enjoy reading about our weather and winter activities.

As the pictures show, we had an incredible time enjoying the many magical activities in the library for Harry Potter week. Mrs. Castonia created everything! She is incredibly talented and we are all so fortunate to have her as a volunteer. Mrs. Conley enjoyed playing the Niffler challenge game. The Niffler is a creature from Fantastic Beasts. The most popular activity was making Hogwarts bracelets in the colors of the houses: Gryffindor, Slytherin, Hufflepuff, and Ravenclaw.

Students have continued working on their biome research and projects. We've enjoyed choosing and researching a biome and choosing a way in which to share what we've learned. The projects are coming along beautifully. All of the projects are due by next Friday. This will conclude science for the year.

Checking on the bugs!

Exploration! We began this unit will a unique smell challenge. Yes, smell challenge. Students were asked to identify fifteen different foods/spices by smell. These foods and spices were part of the lucrative trade that drove the European desire to explore. We had an easy time identifying vanilla and chocolate, but a few of the others were tough. During our study we will be identifying the causes and effects of exploration as well as understanding how exploration changed the world - both positively and negatively. We will also learn about the indigenous people who were already on the continent of North America well before the Europeans arrived. Our next step is to learn the names and locations of the continents and oceans of the world. This will help us make sense of where the explorers came from and where they went.

We are continuing our study of fractions. This week we focused on using the benchmarks of 0, 1/2, and 1 to help us compare and order fractions. We learned the difference between a fraction and a mixed number and also what's "improper" about an improper fraction. We thought a lot about the relationship between fractions and division and how a fraction is just another way to write a division problem. The numerator is the dividend and the denominator is the divisor because, after all, the fraction bar means divide! Today we had a rousing game of Fraction Cover-all. The Acadians even beat me before having a chance to play with their partners.

Who knew fractions could be fun!

Purple folders went home with work to be shared. Please find twenty minutes during the next week to look at your child's work with them. There is much to be proud of. Please return all work in the purple folder to school so students can file it in their portfolios.

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