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his BS in Education from Northern State University. He will be working a lot with your children so when you hear his name, now you will have a little reference as to who he is and what he's here for. The kids have really enjoyed working with him in class.
• Time flies when you're having fun. It is hard to believe that we are already into the third quarter. With that, brings new materials and even higher expectations of our students as the 5th grade has become the catalyst grade for middle school. We have been working hard on preparing the kids for the changes that will be coming as they venture out of the secure nest into the world of middle school. I'm not sure all of them understand the changes that will come at them with the "big change." We as teachers are excited for them and look forward to the advances our school district is making. Third and Fourth quarter we will continue to groom them toward being prepared for middle school.
•  The state writing assessment will be a big part of the third quarter. Our students will be working hard to show growth and improve their scores. This is the second time this year the kids have had the chance to show what they know with their writing skills. We think they have done very well as a group and are becoming very fluent with the process. With writing, comes reading and we have really focused our attention to comprehension. The students are engaged daily in reading passages that match directly to our standards. The stories in our book have been very interesting and the kids have been exposed to a lot of various reading strategies to help them process and build comprehension skills.
•  Our math class has been busy crunching numbers and expanding our math foundations. We are currently working with multiplying and dividing fractions in class. We are also working through our standards by adding and subtracting integers. This is new material for our fifth graders, but they are handling it very well.
•  In Science, we will be racing through our material, literally. The kids will be busy working on making cars out of 2 cd's, a can, some rubber bands and a pencil. Talk about your very own little McGivers'. Give them some rubber bands, some chewing gum and watch them erupt with creativity. They will be busy looking to learn about potential energy and kinetic energy. They have enjoyed this project thoroughly in the past and I do not see this group being any different than the rest. At the end of it all, we will race our cars in class to crown our champion. Who will build the perfect car?
•  Our students will soon be given the opportunity to begin partaking in band. This will start in fourth quarter and every student will be exposed to it for two weeks. The class is constructed to expose all the kids to the instruments available to them. After this initial period, they will then be encouraged to participate in band and will have

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