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•  We welcome student teacher, Justin Fox. Justin is from Minnesota and attending Northern State University.  He will be student teaching in special education next fall.  We welcome the extra help for our students.
•  Students recently enjoyed dissecting owl pellets and delving for bones in science class. Several interesting comments were heard during this activity - "Look at this skull!", "That's the biggest bone yet!", "Is that a mouse or a snake head?" Students have also been studying the body systems and will move on to weather next.
•  We have been doing a variety of area and perimeter problems in math. Students have become very adept at writing equations, fact family sentences for multiply and divide, and attacking multi-step word problems.  Knowing our math facts quickly and accurately becomes more important every day. We will continue on with more work on fractions and measurement.
•  Between shared reading, reading class, and RtI, students have completed several novels. A few of these are Sarah, Plain and Tall, The Mouse and the Motorcycle, Chocolate Fever, Chocolate Touch, Fish Face, and Frindle. We are also enjoying the sequels to some of these. We want students reading a book every spare minute they have. These minutes add up incredibly fast, and reading for enjoyment is the best thing students can do to become better readers.

• 5th Grade ~ Shelby Hendrickson & Janel Lone
• 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 will 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 move". 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 has been a big part of the third quarter. Our students have again been 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 our reading series is very good. The students are engaged daily in reading passages that help build their comprehension and thinking skills.
•  Our math class has been busy crunching numbers and expanding our math

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