We have several field trips planned for this school year. We will be visiting Carlos Museum on the campus of Emory University, where we will be viewing Grecian artifacts. This will support and enrich our study of ancient Greece, which is part of our new social studies curriculum. We will also have three in-school "field trips" by instructors from Fernbank Science Center in DeKalb County. These sessions will support and enrich our science curriculum, as well as helping to prepare the students for the Georgia CRCT. More information will come to you as the times for these events draw nearer. Please make sure that your child is doing extra reading at home. As in other areas, practice makes a dramatic difference in the improvement and strengthening of skills. I encourage at least 100 minutes of extra reading each week. That is an average of 20 minutes a day, which has always been an expectation for Timber Ridge students. Book logs will be distributed each month, and my focus will be on books completed/number of pages read rather than minutes spent on reading each day. I encourage you to read aloud to your children. Reading books to them that are slightly above their reading level allows them to enjoy books they might not ordinarily be exposed to, as well as giving them the opportunity to hear examples of good writing. That helps them to become better writers themselves and motivates them to want to read more books independently.