Dear Families,
In our read aloud, we’re ending the year where we began by reading a fiction book. Our newest and final read aloud book of the year is The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate. It’s a heart-warmer and tearjerker all in one! Simply put, it’s a beautiful book. Speaking of beautiful books, I wanted to briefly discuss summer with you. As you may or may not know, summer is rapidly approaching. It’ll be here before you know it. We’re working collaboratively with the Multnomah County Library to prepare students to immerse themselves in books this summer. In fact, we’re taking a field trip to the library in Troutdale at the end of May to learn more about summer reading. Students will have the opportunity to check out books as well. In preparation for that field trip, it would be awesome if you could answer these few questions about your family’s connections to the library.
Speaking of field trips, we’ve got a few coming up in May that include the Bonneville Dam, the World Forestry Center, the Troutdale Museum, and the library. We have condensed all of those field trips into one permission slip. If you haven’t already done so, please fill it out now. It appears we are missing ten.
We’re putting the final touches of our mini-unit on the Columbia River Highway at the beginning of next week. We’ll then transition into our new and last social studies unit of the year on key industries and natural resources of Oregon.
We embarked on a new speaking activity last week. Students were matched with another student for an interview project. Each student developed a list of questions that they wanted to ask another student. On Friday, they began the interview process. After they have recorded their interviewee’s responses, students will craft a brief (two to four minute) presentation about that student in the form of an oral biography. Students will present the week of May 7th.
Amidst the hustle and bustle of last week, I did not get a chance to scan and email families the list of spelling words for this week. However, students are still expected to study their spelling words this weekend.
We leave for our overnight field trip on Wednesday. I’ll be sending out a separate email about that field trip within the next few days.
Enjoy the last weekend of April,
Mr. B
Idiom of the Week: Show Your True Colors (Yeah, I definitely played the song)
