Week 23 and Parent Teacher Conferences

This week in reading we will be talking about how to compare and contrast similar themes and topics in  stories. We are also starting our 2nd essay. This essay's topic is the following question: Should computers grade student's essays? You can find a link to the article for this essay here: http://www.timeforkids.com/news/debate/103106. Again, students need to fill out the pre write using ideas from the article, write a rough draft, edit and revise their draft, and then type it on the computer. We finally have access to the program, My Access, that will grade student's essays for them, so on Friday we will start putting our essays into My Access. As long as your student has their last essay, Field Trip essay, typed into a Google Doc, we can copy and paste it into My Access so it can grade the essay and your student can revise it.

This week in writing we are finishing our compare and contrast essays. These are fairly short essays, only 4 paragraphs long, and are due on Friday February 7th.

This week in math we are working on turning mixed numbers into improper fractions, and improper fractions into mixed numbers. We are also working on adding and subtracting mixed numbers. This unit's test will be next Thursday, February 13th.

In Social Studies we are working on individual research projects. Each student has been given a leader from Utah history and is researching about that individual. They will write 2 paragraphs in class about their person, and present their findings to the class.

Lastly, don't forget that parent teacher conferences are this week. This means that Tuesday and Wednesday will be Monday schedule days. If you have signed up for a conference, please don't forget to come. If you have not signed up for a conference, PLEASE sign up! I really want to meet with each student's parents to go over how your student is doing and how we can help them!

This Week's Homework:

Monday:            Read 20 Mins

                           *Reading Log & Road to Success

                          Computer Grading Essay

                           Word Problems 2

Tuesday:          Read 20 Mins

                           *Reading Log & Road to Success

                          Computer Grading Essay

                           Word Problems 3

Wednesday:     Read 20 Mins

                           *Reading Log & Road to Success

                           Computer Grading Essay

                           Word Problems 4

Thursday:          Read 20 Mins

                           *Reading Log & Road to Success

                           Computer Grading Essay

                          Word Problems 5

Friday:              Read 20 Mins

                          Computer Grading Essay 

                          *Reading Log & Road to Success