Another busy week lies ahead! First, thanks to everyone who has ordered from Scholastic books this time--the more books ordered by individual student equals more free books for our class. Thank you. Tuesday is the last day to order.

Most of the students have returned the necessary information for the March 8 field trip to Austin. The deadline is January 31. If your child is not going please let me know. If you need me to resend the information let me know that as well. If you are planning to chaperone, please register online through HISD for approval. Approval can take up to 4 weeks so please don't wait until the last minute.

This week in class:

Writing: returning to personal narrative writing! Continuing to edit paragraphs. Too many students are still beginning sentences with lower case letters and forgetting periods at the end. This will keep a STAAR writing piece from being a "4."

Reading: Figurative language (similes, metaphors, idioms). Being able to recognize these and then being able to apply them in writing will improve a STAAR writing piece, too.

Math: Powers of 10, rounding and estimating large numbers, comparing data. Chapter 5 test on Friday.

Science: The moon and tides

Social Studies: Begin a new planner "The Deciders"--a study of government. This week we will identify the 3 branches of US government and discuss the US Constituition and the US Pledge of Allegiance.

Have a good week and enjoy the Martin Luther King Holiday.