It was great to see everyone last week for parent teacher conferences. I hope you all got to hear about some of the amazing things your child is doing this year in school. We still have a lot of growth left this year but so far we are all off to a great start. This week we are settling in for our first full 5-day week of school without a field trip. Hopefully we have our stamina built up at this point and can keep with it all week. 

Some of the other things I have been up to lately include: 

• Taking care of our chinook salmon in the fish tank. 
• Learning badminton in P.E. class
• Creating corn husk dolls in Bull Trout Basin
• Writing our journalism articles for the BBS newsletter.
• Teaching Health lessons in each classroom. This month we are focusing on mental health.
• Working with Tammy on our students support systems.
• Preparing for upcoming activities including the winter performance, ski and ride season, music classes, and more. 

 As always, there is a lot going on at BBS these days, thanks for reading our blog and staying informed.

Today Molly led the class in a craft project for the Holiday Bazaar. Students worked in buddy pairs and made corn husk dolls. Ask your kids about their creations.

We are starting off our yearbook class strong! We’ve chosen our theme, as well as chosen backgrounds for each of the pages. Each class from here on out we will learn about a graphic design topic and then apply those lessons in a workshop where kids design their pages. This past week we learned about the fundamentals of design.

Our next OBOB meeting is Thursday Nov 19th, 3:15-4:15pm

Helpful resources:

• September meeting slideshow
• author name pronunciation guide
• book/author list
• slideshow with book descriptions
• OBOB website
• OBOB Dog (practice questions)
• OBOB official rules

Humanities: Blue Bay students are continuing their learning about Constantinople by researching different places to visit if they were to go on a trip to Istanbul and figuring out what time period those places were built. By studying one city, students are able to make connections with how time periods and different cultures change throughout history. Some of these connections will help the students transition to learning about the spread of Islam later this school year. 

Students have a spelling test on the first 50 fry words this Friday. Throughout the rest of the school year, the spelling tests will cover the 1,000 fry words, which are the most common words in the English language. Lastly, it is important that each student carves out some nightly reading time at home for either their OBOB book (5th), or Charlotte’s Web (6th). 

Science: Tomorrow students will take their Ecology unit test. There is a green review sheet that outlines the material the test will be on. The students do not have to memorize the sheet, it is just a summary of key terms and core concepts we have covered in science this year. On the test, they will answer questions that require them to apply their knowledge and understanding of these concepts. 

Math: 5th graders have homework tonight, The Problem Set in their math workbooks. All I ask is that the students try their best to do these challenging word problems. We will be reviewing the answers and strategies tomorrow in class, so if there is confusion, we can clear it up then. Both 5th and 6th graders have tests on their first major math unit this Friday. For 5th graders, that is place value and decimal operations. For 6th graders, it is on geometry: Area of quadrilaterals/triangles, and surface area of three-dimensional prisms.

Thank you all for wonderful conference visits last week! We are returning to our outside playtime for Friday mornings, rain or shine, so please have your students ready to play outside this Friday. 

Literacy

• K/1- Reading and writing short vowels word with closed syllables and digraphs (wish, them, sick, or jet, bib, dad) 
• 1/2 – open syllables and flexing the schwa sounds (wagon, adopt, parade)

Math

• K- writing addition equations
• 1- exploring teen numbers
• 2- Unit assessments and skill challenges from the work shown at conferences 

Science

• Learning about how people use trees and how people can care for trees

Literacy: Students are continuing with D.L.R. (daily language review), wrapping up a unit of consonant -le, reading informational, non-narrative text, creating a vocabulary list on a selection about ballpoint pens, and getting ready to take a print to cursive test on the previously modeled cursive letters.

Math: Students are developing a sense of how multiplication and division are connected, refreshing their understanding of rounding to the nearest ten, adding/subtracting with carrying and borrowing principles, time telling, perimeter, and how to use arrays to set up multiplication and division equations. 

Science/Social Studies: Students are working on their Oregon Agricultural Regions map and beginning to recognize some Oregon counties. The class has also been working on their Bulltrout Basin articles during this time.

Books we’re reading: Schomburg – The Man Who Built a Library and The Iron Giant