This is a short month with much to do and with many interruptions, including a New York State exam thrown in-between! Parent-teacher conferences, emergency go-home drill, Veteran's Day and Thanksgiving recess all dot the calendar. Thank you to those parents who contributed to our Halloween party. I am very grateful.

Reading: We are in our second reading unit, have finished our class novel Owl in the Shower, and are halfway through our second novel, My Brother Sam is Dead. Each student has completed his or her fall Diagnostic Reading Assessment. Please review your child's reading journal on a nightly basis and ask about in-class reading assignments that have begun over the last several weeks with an additional in-class text.

Math: Class stock market portfolios are coming along well...even if they're not making us rich! We are completing unit 4 on rounding, range, mean, median, mode, and graphing. We are using weather folders and the internet to record average temperatures on www.weather.com. We will use this data to begin spreadsheets on Microsoft Excel.

Social Studies: The New York State exam in social studies is scheduled for Nov. 16-17. We are practicing several strategies to review information. To help improve their own writing, students will actually be grading old NYS essays using a rubric and will compare information with their own essays. Once the exam is completed, we will be focusing briefly on Native Americans and then move into our unit on European Explorers. For now, we are wrapping up our mini-unit on geography and latitude/longitude.

Science: We have begun our unit on Poplulations and Ecosystems. This is a lengthy unit with a great deal of information from carnivores to symbiosis to photosynthesis to freshwater and saltwater ecosystems to biomes. Additionally, we will be conducting in-class science labs in preparation for the annual science fair.

Language Arts: Students are writing Fall essays using graphic organizers, checklists, peer editing, revising, and typed final copies. We are also in the middle of our second grammar unit on nouns. Who knew there were so many...singular, plural, singular possessive, plural possessive, common, proper, person, place, thing, idea...and the 7 magic rules of changing a singluar noun to a plural noun - WHEW! Students are in the process of making their Googles of Grammar Reference Guide by using cutouts from magazines and will add to their creations throughout the year.