Good morning, dear families, it's Mrs. Maza again. Looks like you're stuck with me now to finish the blog writing for the rest of the year. If you appreciated Ms. Johansen's brevity, please feel free to just scroll down past all my monologuing and get to the important stuff. I still have parents from years ago who still follow because they enjoy reading my blog. Weird.
So, big changes in fourth grade! I hope it all goes smoothly in 4B and that I don't pull my hair out in 4C! Just kidding, I'll be fine. I've had to work on my own before, plus I've had many parents already step up and offer their assistance. It's much appreciated. We have a great team and I know they will step up to help me out.
So, last night was Valentine's Day and my husband and I went to a friend's house with 3 other couples and had a lovely dinner. We played games afterward and it was lots of fun. Tonight we'll celebrate our friend's 50th birthday! Seems like yesterday when I had my own big bash for my 50th. Then, I'll still have two more days to get stuff done around the house; I love 3-day weekends! Remember from the fall I was writing about getting our back yard done?...well it's still not done! But we are working on it! Dave's father's 90th birthday celebration will be hosted here over Spring Break, so we are fighting to beat this deadline. Pavers are all done, sink is installed (but still without the water connected), and last weekend Dave started building a really cool table for the patio. It's metal and will have these wood look tile planks for the table top. Then we need to get electricity going and seal the concrete countertop, and we'll be ready for the fiesta! I know, you're thinking all that and it's 3 weeks away! My thoughts exactly! I'll keep you posted.
Galileo testing will take place Tuesday afternoon. Sorry for the short notice, but I hope you can refrain from taking kids out early that day. Making up tests is always difficult because it usually means missing instruction time.
Let's take a look at what we're doing in this shortened week ahead.
Language Arts
Grammar - We will practice how to write contractions this week and then learn how to diagram them.
Literature - We'll read the next three chapters of Prince Caspian this week, focusing on the virtuous behavior of Trumpkin.
Poetry - Stanza 7 of our poem will be recited on Friday, even though it's a short week. It would be a good idea for them to get started this weekend. (We won't have Spalding this week, so they can use that time each day to work on memorization.)
Math - This week the kids will wrap up the first part of unit 7, adding and subtracting with decimals. They'll take a short quiz on Wednesday, then we will spend some time in preparation for AZ Merit testing.
History - Our Arizona story continues as we wrap up the two wars that helped shape the territory of Arizona, then we'll move on to learning about how that territory became a state.
Science - One more week of volcanoes, with an exciting concluding activity on Friday! It's gonna blow the kids' tops!
That's it. Thank you to all our wonderful parents who contributed items and volunteered to come in to help make our Great Hearts Day celebration so fun! The kids had a super day!
Enjoy your long weekend!