Weekly Update!

We had a very productive week! In Language Arts, the girls have been hard at work on their persuasive writing and presentations. This type of essay is very structured and requires the girls to write a traditional introduction where they state their argument, three paragraphs containing reasons to support their argument, and a concluding paragraph to wrap things up. We had three presentations on Thursday, and I was very impressed with their creativity and level of preparedness. The next writing lab is a fun one where the girls will become owners of a Friendship Business and will design their own Friendship Machine. They will write about what friendship means to them, how their machine works and helps you become a better friend (just in time for Valentine's Day).

We continued discussing a variety of figurative language techniques including idioms, personification, alliteration, similes, and metaphors. The girls will be required to use these terms when analyzing their Langston Hughes poems. In addition, I introduced the next set of prefixes/root words. This time we are focusing on Greek numbers and the root dict-, which means to say or tell. The prefix challenge will be due this coming Friday, February 15th.

In math, we continued discussing multiplying a whole times a fraction. After having some fun with Smarties, we used counters to display our problems and then drew pictures to match our work. Towards the end of the week, we transitioned to writing the number sentences in our composition notebooks. We even touched on how to cross cancel to reduce the fractions before multiplying the numbers together. Please take a look at the checkpoint worksheet in your daughter's packet of papers to see if there are any areas she might need to spend extra time on at home. We will talk about word problems on Monday and Tuesday, and we will spend Wednesday and Thursday reviewing for the Unit 4 test. The test will be this Friday, February 15th.

In History, the girls have been reading several articles in a Newsela text set for Black History Month. Also, they read about famous Suffragettes and wrote about their favorite woman activist. Then the girls explored an interactive map where they chose different countries and recorded when women gained the right to vote in that country. They really enjoyed this activity.

Reminders and General Information

Information needing a parent response is highlighted.

**Parent How-To Videos for accessing Quia, Newsela, and That Quiz!

**The Family Life class will be taught by Nurse Blanton in February. Here is the letter from Dr. Kapetanis, which outlines more information about this event. 

**Homework- for family planning

**For Valentine's Day- The girls will need to bring in a valentine for each classmate and a box to collect their valentines. They can be as creative as they would like. They are welcome to bring in valentines for girls in other classes as well as any teacher or staff member. Also, we will have another Wordly Wise Dress Up on this day. Put your thinking caps on and get creative! 

**Our class chapel is February 25th.

**Carpool Helper(s)-  Annabelle and Harper will represent our class.

**Special Week- Serpell

Class Leadership Week of 2/11/19

Ambassadors/Flag Raisers- Maeve and Serpell-They will raise and lower the flag again this week, since they did not get a chance to participate much last week).

Girls: Your blog question is...When is our class Chapel? Post your answers here.