The Everyday Miracle of Business as Usual

Hope you all had a great weekend and loved the weather as much as I did.

Here's the schedule for this week:

• We do have a spelling list this week (next week we won't, because of the field trip on Friday), and I'll post that below. We did write the definitions in class today, as the words were acted out in very short skits by the kids. This week's list is all nouns, so for their meaning exercise, it would
• Tomorrow we will have a Social Studies test. I gave them the "study guide" (which is actually the test from the book series) today, they completed it during class, and I told them to take them home and study tonight. I will not ask them to know the individual names of the tribes and where they lived, but I will have questions about the different regions as a part of the test. 
• I am planning to start a Science unit on Wednesday. This Science unit will be about the different states of matter. This will replace Social Studies for the most part* for the duration of the matter unit.
• *The one exception is that we will be having states and capitals quizzes beginning next Tuesday. I will hand out the study guide for that one tomorrow, so they will have plenty of time to memorize their first ten-or-so states. It wouldn't be fifth grade without having to memorize the states and capitals. (The jury is out, though, on whether or not to give them a comprehensive test at the end of all the quizzes... I'll see how they do.)

Here's the Spelling List for this week: 

1. envelope
2. insect
3. kitchen
4. laundry
5. novel
6. orchard
7. pollution
8. raccoon
9. village
10. voyage
11. plateau
12. rhythm

The last two words will likely cause the most frustration in learning their proper spellings this week. We discussed the "eau" making the long o sound, and many students want to put a vowel of some sort between the h and the m in rhythm. 

Thanks for getting your permission slips to me. All I have left are some waiver forms that were not returned yet. I'll try to track down a few more of those to send home with the people who are missing them.

Have a great week, everyone.