October 2009 Highlights

• The PTA Ice Cream Social was held on OctobSer 5th. Over 300 children and parents attended this first PTA event of the year. In addition to delicious sundaes, the children had a great time climbing on and touring the rescue squad’s ambulance.  Thank you to all the volunteers and special thanks to Erika Robles for chairing this event.  Everyone had a wonderful time.
• On October 13th,14th and 15th, the PTA sponsored the Scholastic Book Fair. The children had a great time shopping for books, posters and an assortment of pens, pencils, bookmarks and other fun things. Thank you to all our volunteers and a special thank you to Jennifer  Chapman and Cindi Utter for all their hard work in making our Book Fair a success.
• October is the National Principal Month. In honor of that the PTA presented our wonderful principal, Mrs. Boley with an IFlip camera for the school. 
• Across the state of New Jersey, the third week of October (10/19-23) is designated as School Violence Awareness Week, (aka, “Peace Week”). Students will be provided with activities and opportunities for discussion about promoting the importance of school safety.  The teachers and I will conduct lessons that will focus on identifying bullying behavior and provide strategies for handling bullying situations.  We will practice using I-messages and We-messages and talk about the difference between tattling and telling.  During our morning meeting, Bowne-Munro students will watch the Stop Bullying Now web sites and discuss them at lunch time.  We’ll also have school spirit days all week long to unite ourselves against violence.
• Third graders have been very busy since school started!  We just finished publishing our first personal narrative stories this past week. Both classes had a Writer’s Museum where we got to read each other’s stories and write compliments to each other.  We are working now to collect new entries to publish.  In reading we are beginning to learn how to work cooperatively with a reading partner to discuss the books we are reading.  In third grade we also have Mystery Readers who come to our class and read to us.  We look forward to meeting our Mystery Readers as the year progresses!
• In science we are working with rocks and minerals.  We have spent time doing several tests on Mystery Minerals and reading about minerals that are found all over the world.  We will use the results of all of our tests to try and identify the name of each mineral.  In Social Studies we have been working hard to improve our map reading skills.  Ask a third grader which way they are traveling and they’ll be able to use their cardinal directions to tell you!
• In math we have begun working on Unit 2, which is all about number sense.  Third graders are working hard to improve their addition and subtraction facts.  In fact, they are tracking their progress each week on a Mad Minute fact quiz with a bar graph.  In Health we have spent lots of time learning about our feelings and how to express our feelings positively.
• The fifth graders spent time meeting their Kinderbuddies and gettting to know one another.  We are looking forward to a fun-filled year of activities.