11/19/2007

Dear Families,

We greet our short Thanksgiving week with gratitude and a burst of energy (I hope!) to accomplish our many tasks.

We have completed ITBS testing with the exception of make-up tests.

I hope that many of you can join us for the Thanksgiving Assembly this Wednesday, November 21. We begin at 10:30 in the gym. Your kids will share their family histories. Please remember to send a donation to the Baby Diaper Bag project.

� ACADEMICS

HISTORY

Students have presented their Road to Independence slide shows. We move on to the Constitutional Convention. The students will take on roles of convention members and reenact the debates and controversies of the real convention.

Students continue reading the historical fiction novel, My Brother Sam is Dead by James and Christopher Collier.

RELIGION

We will begin Chapter 2 in our Religion book during this short week.

LANGUAGE ARTS

I have returned the first draft of their feature articles – I was impressed! Features are the most difficult news articles to write and your kids are doing well. I will give back their revised leads and “paragraph 2” on Wednesday so that during Thanksgiving break, students can write their final feature article.

LITERATURE

Students are writing a journal entry as if they are Tim Meeker, the main character in My Brother Sam is Dead. This journal entry is due tomorrow, Tuesday, November 20, 2007. Students will finish reading the novel this week.

MATH

Both classes finished up a decoding activity today and will work on positive and negative numbers on Tuesday.

I wish everyone a great Thanksgiving.

-Mary Riley

SCIENCE

Updates about Science are posted in the Science section of school web page.

ü CLASSROOM COMMUNITY

I am grateful for each of your children and feel so fortunate to spend my schooldays with them. I wish you all a happy and blessed Thanksgiving.

Ann Christianson

annc@saintbrendan.org