Humphreys Headlines

October 4, 2013
Next week our class will spend three days taking the MEAP test. On Tuesday and Wednesday, we will take the reading portion of the MEAP. On Thursday, we take the first day of the writing portion. The most important things you can do for your child on these days are to make sure your child eats a healthy breakfast and has plenty of restful sleep. A special thank you to the five parents who volunteered to bring healthy snacks to school! Mrs. Angebrandt, Mrs. Frost and Mrs. Delacher will be donating snacks next week. Mrs. Usher and Mrs. Griffin will be donating snacks the following week. A huge thank you! If your child is ill from school, they will make up the test when they return to school. Thank you for your support!

MEAP!

Science
Our classroom has continued to work on our science unit, States of Matter. We have been focusing on three states of matter: solid, liquid and gas. There is a fourth state of matter, plasma, which we will not be learning about at this level. We learned that solids are made up of matter, have mass and volume and have a definite shape. We measured mass using a balance with gram cubes. The students even made their own balance! We proved that liquids have mass and volume and take the shape of whatever container it holds. Next week we will be exploring gases and how gas takes up space by showing how a liquid cant enter a bottle unless air can escape. We will also talk about what molecules are doing inside of the three states of matter. Science has been very fun and hands on so far this year!

Our class is continuing to work on Unit 2 in math this week. This unit the students are examining the place value system using whole numbers into the millions, reviewing addition and subtraction of whole numbers and extending their knowledge of data. With the data, we are reviewing and learning concepts such as minimum, maximum, range, mode, median and mean. The data collection is more than computation and organization we are also learning how to analyze and draw conclusions about the data. Our classroom is using an interactive math notebook to help them learn important skills. Sometimes the kids are bringing home the notebook to help them with the evenings homework. In class the s tudents have a math text called the Student Reference Book. The kids in the class have renamed our interactive math notebooks as our Student-Made Student Reference Book. We are also continuing to work on our math facts. Please keep practicing those math facts! Check out the classroom blog for some fun math fact games!

Math

Social Studies with Mrs. Walla

We have been using our "Social Studies Weekly" newspapers to teach the concepts of democracy and citizenship. Comparing our democracy to other types of government (monarchy and dictatorship), as well as discussing the Constitutional rights of every American citizen, we have laid a solid foundation for more indepth analysis of our nation. Currently, we are working on understanding that, in addition to our rights, citizens have responsibilities that help our country to run smoothly and fairly.

MISCELLANEOUS NOTES
Please know that if you have any questions or concerns, please get in touch with me at school (863-6362) or by e-mail (khumphreys@rockfordschools.org). Have a great weekend! Please return the book order by Thursday, October 17. Please order your books online if you can we earn more classroom points with online orders! Thanks! A special thank you to Sarah Lastocy, Donavins mom, for volunteering to be our room mom. It sounds like she has already started planning parties with several parents. Thank you!