Alby’s Coming Soon!...

Our new friend, Alby the Bulldog, is on his way from Anaheim to Gridley! He’s taking a journey around the four regions of California and his first stop is the Central Valley! We’ll be hosting Alby for six weeks, just long enough for each student to take him home, show him around, and create a journal page of his experiences! Share in Alby’s travels on the Alby the Bulldog’s California Travel Adventure page! Start brainstorming where you and Alby might go!

Late September ’09: Topics-of-Study...

Practice, practice, practice! This is time well-spent!

Language Arts: Step Up to Writing Introduction, Six Traits of Writing: Ideas, Capitalizing/Underlining Titles, Review of Finding Information in Books + Complete Sentences

• Step Up to Writing, Step Up to Writing #2 (notes + examples)
• 6 Traits Writing: Ideas (notes)
• Capitalization Rules (notes)
• Parts of a Book (notes), Reading Nonfiction (video), Parts of a Book, How to Locate Parts of a Book (review practice), Using a Dictionary (review practice and notes), It’s Non-Fiction (song)
• Complete Sentences: Subjects and Predicates (notes), Complete, Subject, or Predicate? (review practice)

Mathematics: Comparing and Ordering Numbers, Rounding, Review of Place Value + Multiplication Facts

• Comparing and Ordering Numbers (notes), One False Move (review practice)
• Rounding (notes), Rounding, Rounding #2, Rounders Rounding (review practice)
• Place Value and Number Forms (notes), Place Value Pirates, Everything in Its Place, Place Value Puzzler (review practice)
• Multiplication Chart (notes), Fact Families, Save the Clown Fish, Around the World in 80 Seconds, Dude’s Dilemma (review practice)
• Trimester One Math Helper (front), Trimester One Math Helper (back)

Social Studies: Chapter One: California’s Geography, Review of General Global Geography

• California Geography (notes), CA’s Location/Regions of CA, Climate/Vegetation, etc. (vocabulary practice)
• The Continents and Oceans, Name the Continents, World Continents Quizzes, Test Your Geography Knowledge (review practice)
• Water and Land (song we’ll practice in class)

Science: Chapter One — Living Things Need Energy

• Chapter One Resources (vocabulary practice, videos, and more)
• Dirt Made My Lunch (song from class)
• Parts of a Plant, Photosynthesis, Plant Life Cycle (videos)
• Illuminating Photosynthesis, Root Factory, Life Cycle of Plants (review practice)
• Food Chain (video), Food Chains Science Desk (review practice)

DonorsChoose Funding!...

Well, folks, I have to say it yet again. I LOVE DONORSCHOOSE! Within the last two days, we have had three proposals completely funded and one 3/4 funded! The grand total is just under $1,000! Two days!!!

Soon to arrive: One Canon Powershot Digital Camera, five books on various native Californian tribes, and multiple writing helpers.

As those of you at Back to School Night heard, writing will be a major focus for our entire school. The writing supplies we will receive from DonorsChoose (five different items in all; only one is seen above) will really help the progress of our writing!