Monday, May 13, 2013

May 13-17 Weekly Reminders

Rockhopper Weekly Reminders
May 13- May 17


Mark Your Calendars:
  • Monday, May 13th:  Gold Rush Essay (final draft) due
  • Tuesday, May 14th:  Lunch on the Lawn
  • Tuesday, May 14th:  5th Grade Geometry Unit 9 Test
  • Thursday, May 16th:  Wax Museum Speech due
  • Thursday, May 23rd:  Sacramento Field Trip
  • Friday, May 24th:  Learning Day (No School)
  • Wednesday, May 29th:  Open House 7-7:45pm for Rockhoppers!

Art Help Needed!- Letter from Mrs. Schulze
Hi There,

I'm really looking forward to our art show again this year.  Your students have done some amazing work!  I love watching the multi-purpose room come to life!

I need your help to find parent volunteers who can help in one or both of the following ways:

Mounting and labeling artwork:
One volunteer from each class who can take artwork home to mount and label for the show.  I will need to have it back by Thursday, May 23rd.

Hanging the art show:
Volunteers who can help me hang the art show on our black display boards.  Volunteers can drop in and help for any amount of time between 12:15-2:15 on Tues, May 28 and 8-12 on Weds, May 29th.

Please ask parents to email me if available.

Thank you for your help!
Judy Schulze
judy.schulze@gmail.com

CCSS PARENT INFORMATION NIGHT [MATH AND THE COMMON CORE]
Tuesday, May 21, 2013
6:30 – 8:00 p.m.
Lawson Middle School Event Center
10401 Vista Drive
Cupertino, CA 95014
The District will be holding a Parent Information Meeting focused on the Common Core State  Standards and mathematical shifts. This is a follow-up to the town hall meetings held in February and is open to all parents in the Cupertino Union School District (videos of the earlier town halls are available at www.cusdk8.org)
The guest speaker for the evening will be Hung-Hsi Wu, a Professor Emeritus of Mathematics at the University of California at Berkeley. He began his mathematics education in 1992 and worked from 1997-2005 with the State of California covering all aspects of mathematics education. Mr. Wu has worked with the National Mathematics Advisory Panel, and the writing team for the Common Core Mathematics Standards. He is currently in the process of completing several textbooks to help with the implementation of the CCSS for middle and high school teachers.
Please RSVP your attendance to https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/cusdccssmath

Sacramento Trip- Lunch Order Reminder!
Lunch order forms went home today for all students and chaperones- please place your order and send it back with your student by WEDNESDAY, MAY 15TH!  

“Gold Dust or Bust!” Performance Volunteers
We have compiled all returned volunteer forms and we are setting up meetings with those persons interested in coordinating food, backdrop, costumes, and props.  If you indicated you were “flexible” about your volunteer job, we have sent you an e-mail invitation to meet with us on Thursday, May 16 at 11:45am.  Thursday, May 16 after school (3pm) will be our meeting time for brackdrop, costume, and prop coordinators.  When we’ve completed these meetings, coordinators will contact all remaining volunteers to organize our play effort.



Curriculum Flash!
Language Arts

Bridge to Terabithia is the focus for all our language arts work at this moment.  We are doing vocabulary work, figurative language reflection, and a variety of response work to the main characters, Jess and Leslie, in the text.  We’ll be reading part of the way through Chapter 7 this week as a village. Our writer’s workshop time is being divided between display board work and speech preparation in Social Studies and ongoing work on the Interdependence Keynote project in Science- both are great applications of our writing skills and organizational abilities.

Math:
4th grade:
This week’s central topic is data analysis.  On Friday, we had our students go through a series of short survey centers.  They added their information to a class set of data that will be turned into graph form by small groups of their classmates.  Analysis questions related to the graphed data will also be composed by the small groups and responded to by their fellow students.  In our remaining class sessions, we’ll practice the calculation of mean, median, mode, and range for data sets, and we will learn how to use coordinate grids to plot and identify data points AND to graph algebraic functions!

5th grade:
Over the next two weeks, students will gather data and create line plots to help interpret their findings.  Students will be asked to complete a series of performance tasks that demonstrate not only their understanding, but the application of these ideas.  They will need to explain, reason and justify throughout this process.   

Social Studies:  
Our Gold Rush Wax Museum projects are under way; the final presentation will be shared with you at Open House!  The project has many different components (research essay, informational board, costume, speech, props) and a series of due dates to help students manage their time and accomplish tasks piece by piece.  Time in class will be given to work on the project, but students will also need to complete some parts for homework.

Science:
This week students continue to work on their technology project using a presentation application to demonstrate their understanding of the interdependence of organisms in a variety of ecosystems. So far, students have used iPads in our classes to research endangered animals, create food webs using the Popplet app, and label photographs using the Skitch app.  I’m sure we’ll see some effective use of the Keynote (or other presentation) application this week as we move onto our laptops to assemble the project. As time allows, we will read interesting articles from the science textbook that speak of animal and bird migration, range of tolerance, and the various ecosystems within California as part of Investigation 5 in the Environments unit.

CA Trivia:
What is the oldest museum in California?

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