Room 20 Classroom Notes March 10-14

Greetings! This week, we will continue to develop our Taiko musicianship Monday through Wednesday. On Wednesday, we will be performing at 2:00 for the other Taiko groups at Lewis and anyone who would like to come support our classroom and school. It will be located in the gym. I am formulating our next trip down to Tideman Station Johnson Creek to be good stewards of our watershed. If you would like to be a part of this excursion, please let me know. I am preparing to depart right after spring break; think early April. The students will be giving their speeches starting on Monday, March 17th. I want students to be "off book." I will be giving them several sessions to memorize their persuasive essays so they know it backwards and forwards. We also have discussed what good presenters do: eye contact, confidence, volume, pace. I will not be at school on Wednesday or Thursday. I will be taking part in a conference with Intel based on technology and education at Intel's campus. I am very excited to be a part of it, considering we have so much technology at our school. Needless to say, no homework club this week. In math, we will be going into a new unit that delves deeper into fractions and decimals. In reading, some novel groups will be shifting to a new novel. We will also be reading our selection of the week: "The Three Century Woman." We will explore humorous fiction and activating prior knowledge as our reading strategy. We started collecting data on our science experiment about flight. This week we will write up our findings and create a spreadsheet and graph to notice any trends. We are also growing bacteria in an incubator we borrowed from Reed College. Yes, just a normal week of learning in room 20!