Week in Review

Owl Pellet Treasures

READING: We finished C.S. Lewis' The Horse and His Boy. At last students were able to learn which of their logical predictions came to pass. We discovered that many of the predictions we had made earlier in the novel were accurate. Throughout the book, we practiced questioning techniques because as we discussed, insightful readers ask questions as they read as a means to focus their minds on important details. Again, many of the questions we had asked earlier in the book were answered by the book's end.

WRITING: We continued work on our personal narratives. Using a writer's guide by Ralph Fletcher, we explored a variety of techniques designed to help us brainstorm ideas for our memoirs. We were pleasantly surprised to discover how something as simple as sketching and labeling a map of our neighborhoods could cause great memories of potentially great stories to rise to the surface. Students shared their neighborhood map drawings and stories with their peers before committing the words to paper.

MATH: We focused our attention on our threes and nines tables this week. Students should continue to practice their times tables at home.

SCIENCE: As the collage indicates, we used toothpicks to break apart owl pellets in our search for rodent skeletons. We learned that owls consume their prey whole before regurgitating the indigestible bits such as bones and fur. Tearing apart the pellets, we found animal fur as well as bones and skulls. We used our newly acquired knowledge of the human skeleton to help us identify and reconstruct the regurgitated vole skeleton. We then made comparisons and contrasts between the two types of skeletons.

STARS; We took our mid-year online reading and math assessments this week. What an impressive class this is. These boys and girls all demonstrated growth and progress in both areas with many students making considerable jumps in their scores. Indeed, I couldn't help bragging a bit to my colleagues about how impressed I was with this group. Be sure to ask your child or (s)he did.

BOOK PROJECT: Book projects are due the first week of March. At this point, students should have chosen an appropriate non-fiction text and begun reading their selections. Remember, final projects should reflect more than a month's worth of work.