No one guessed the baby appearing in last week’s post, but this one’s a bit easier. If you want to know the identity of either baby, be sure to attend the year-end Awards Assembly on Thursday, June 9th, at 8:30 a.m. We’ll be airing our Year-in-Review and 5th Grade Baby Picture Program, revealing the identity of all seventy-five of our “babies.”

Aside from that, the school year is winding down rapidly. Here’s the homework for this week: Monday, May 23rd, Tuesday, May 24th, Wednesday, May 25th, and Thursday, May 26th. Students should also be continuing their Book Club reading. We’ll be having our concluding activity next week.

Other important events include the following: No School this Friday, May 27th (Budget Reduction Day); No school on Monday, May 30th (Memorial Day); Adopt-a-Street After-School Walking Field Trip on Tuesday, May 31st (limited to first ten students returning permission slips); Hanley Farms Heritage Fair field trip on Friday, June 3rd; 5th Grade Party (after school) on Friday, June 3rd; State Test Success Celebration at Don Jones Park on Monday, June 6th; Roadrunner Day on Wednesday, June 8th; Last Day of School, Thursday, June 9th. Last but not least, here’s the final episode of the Room 15 News.

A cranky teacher, excited kids, the suddenly-warm weather, and a post-OMSI funk contributed to a rough week in the classroom, but it was capped off by one of the most significant events of the fifth grade year: DARE Graduation. I am immensely proud of each of our students for completing the course and making the pledge to stay away from illegal substances. I am hopeful they’ll all have the inner strength to fulfill their commitment during the challenging teenage years to come. Having graduated, students will attend DARE Day on May 20th. If you haven’t yet read their DARE essays, please see each students’ individual webpage.

Although the end of the year is fast approaching (much too fast, in my opinion), we still have a ton of work to do in class. Students have embarked on our Endangered Species Research Project. Their work will appear on their websites soon. We’ve also started our final Book Club of the year. Students should be reading every weeknight and using the weekends to catch-up. Science Fair proposals are due this Friday. In history we’re plunging forward, hoping to get at least a glimpse of the 20th-Century before we run out of days, and in math we’re continuing our study of fractions by learning to add and subtract fractions with unlike denominators. Here’s our homework for the week: Monday, May 9th; Tuesday, May 10th; Wednesday, May 11th, and Thursday, May 12th. Two other notable events take place this week. On Thursday we’ll be having our “Supreme Court Hearing.” Students from the other classes have challenged the constitutionality of the Room 15 right to chew gum in class. The case will be heard by Justices Davenport, Rankin, and Harmon at 1:00 in the Music Room. And finally, here’s the latest installment of the Room 15 News. It includes segments on the OMSI trip, DARE Graduation, and our news team’s visit to KOBI.

Conferences are scheduled for Wednesday evening, all day Thursday, and Friday morning this week. If you haven’t yet scheduled a conference or wish to confirm your conference time, click on the tab at the top of the page. Note that students do not attend school on Thursday and Friday. They return to class on Tuesday, March 29th. There’s no homework this week as we wrap things up heading into the break. Students have their Book Club comprehension test as well as their History exam on Monday. The rough draft of their DARE essay, which we’re working on in class, is due Tuesday, and they have a sentence test on Wednesday. Also, our floor hockey championship between Dark Dynomite and Mmmmhmmm is scheduled for Tuesday at 1:30. This week we’ll also be sending home information about our OMSI field trip, which is scheduled for April 28th and 29th. Finally, here is the latest installment on the Room 15 News.

Here we are at the end of the second trimester already. Consequently we’re hustling to finish a variety of projects and cramming in a ton of assessments prior to report cards and conferences during the week of March 14th.

Students are reviewing their history journals in preparation for Thursday’s History Jeopardy event and Monday’s trimester history exam.  They also have a spelling exam on Thursday and they should be finishing their current Book Clubs by week’s end.

We’ve finished our lengthy study of geometry with a pair of chapter exams. Although students did less well than I’d hoped, we’ll be reviewing these concepts frequently and I’m convinced students are now well-prepared for their second round of state tests, which are currently in progress.  We’ll wait to begin our next big unit (Fractions) until after Spring Break. This week’s homework will instead focus on History, and there will be no regular classroom homework next week.  Here’s this week’s homework sheets: Monday, March 7th; Tuesday, March 8th; Wednesday, March 9th; Thursday, March 10th.

Finally, here’s the latest installment of the Room 15 News. It’s broken into two episodes; the second one will appear next week.