Today we celebrated the 100th Day of School!

Living Wax Museum: 

Please join us on Wednesday, February 21st for our living wax museum from 8:15-9:15.
A list of items that your child thought of for their costume was sent home last week.  Ideally, families can help each other, so please reach out if there is something you and your child are looking for. 

From the Health Office:

It is important that your student is dressed appropriately for the weather and is prepared to play outside every day. During the winter season, students should have a jacket, gloves or mittens, and a hat. If there is snow on the ground, snow boots and pants are necessary. Also please remember to pack an extra set of seasonal clothing in student backpacks, including socks, for slips and spills. Please be sure your child has indoor shoes every day and outdoor boots.

Valentine’s Day: 

We will be exchanging Valentines on Wednesday, February 14th!  A class list was emailed home last week and a paper copy went home last week. 

Lunch Menu: 

You can access the February UCS menu by clicking here.  A hard copy will also be sent home with your child this week.

Curriculum Updates: 

• 4th Grade Math: This unit focuses on understanding the meaning of fractions and comparing fractions and including finding equivalents. Students use contexts and representations such as rectangles (an area model) and number lines (a linear model) to add, subtract, and multiply fractions.

• 3rd Grade Math: Our current unit focuses on the meaning and structure of multiplication and division and the relationship between them, solving multiplication and division problems, multiplying by multiples of 10, and learning the remaining multiplication facts to 10 × 10. Students use connecting cubes to identify and analyze arithmetic patterns and the relationship between multiplication and division. Problems about multiplying single-digit numbers by multiples of 10 and multi-step problems are set in the context of a toy factory.

• Reading: Students are continuing to practice responding to text using the RACE model.  Ask your child to tell you who ate the teacher’s chocolate using the RACE model!

• Finally, students are busy preparing for the Living Wax Museum! 

• Writing: Students finished writing their Wax Museum Speech.  They will be bringing their speech home today to memorize at home.  Students will be working on their posters this week at school.

• What is a living wax museum?  Each student has chosen a famous person to research and write an informational report about.  They are also working on writing a short speech to memorize and share when they are pretending to be their famous person.  They will make a poster about the person, dress up like them, and give a short speech about them.  Students will be spread out around the school and families will be able to listen to various students share about their person.  
• How can I help my child?  You can help your child by asking them about their person.  All students will be dressing up as their character on February 21st, so they can also use help finding an outfit that matches their person.  Ideally, families can help each other, so please reach out if there is something you and your child are looking for. (We will also be talking about our costumes here at school and how we can help each other.) Your child should be bringing home a hard copy of their speech today. Please help them practice their speech daily.

• Word Study: Students are learning about different word rules and features to help them become better spellers. Groups are focusing on short and long vowel sounds, when to use ch and tch, when to use ai and ay, and rules for doubling and e-dropping when adding suffixes.
• Students will start coming home today with a short list of "priority words" to practice at home. These are generally words that cannot be sounded out and are used the most in writing. Please help your child by having them practice them at home. We will be having a spelling check in on Fridays.