Reminders

• There will be no school next Monday, January 20th.  
• Our Valentine's Day party is scheduled for Friday, February 14th.  We are in need of a room parent to organize and plan this party.  Please let me know if you are interested in stepping into that role.  I have an information packet provided by PTO that provides some guidelines and ideas for planning.  Thank you in advance! 

Reader's Workshop
     This week in Reader's Workshop, we studied the genre of Drama.  Drama can also be called a script or play; it is a genre that is written with the intention of being read aloud with expression. Interestingly, when writing drama, writers don't need to include quotation marks.  Drama has characters with lines and a narrator (or narrators) that give information about the setting.  Drama may have stage directions and can be divided into scenes or acts.
     We studied a newer version of The Ugly Duckling and read the script aloud.  Students tested their comprehension of the piece and practiced the PQPA format.

Math
     In Math this week, students continued practicing strategies for solving multi-digit multiplication problems: the area model, lattice method, and traditional method.  We also learned about a new problem solving strategy: Guess, Check, & Revise.  This involves making a decision about where to start in a problem - knowing it might not be quite right - then using a math problem to check your thinking, and revising if necessary.