The Adventures in Mrs. Ripp's Class

Math – The final unit of the year will be wrapped up next week with the test scheduled for Friday.  It has been wonderful to see the mathematical concepts taught throughout the year come together to form new meaning.    We will also do the end of year test but not until after Memorial Day. 

Science – We were busy building our egg drop contraptions, check out the video of the build on our website.  A video from the actual egg drop will be recorded and posted on our website as well.  As always the ingenuity of the students was wonderful and especially those that realized midway through the build that their device would fail and then changed it. 

Social Studies – Students and I have met to discuss their first drafts; what growth in writing we have seen.  A common problem is the amount of details needed for the report, either too much or too little, so we are working on finding a balance.  Depending on how many students I get to confer with, the deadline may be moved to give everybody more time.  We also started our simulation, “How a Bill becomes A Law,” with students acting as both concerned citizens and the Chamber of Congress.  It definitely deepens their understanding of why the Constitution is such a big deal.

Reading – We use reading time to work on scripts and social studies.

Writing – Great blogging this week on what a principal does.  Next week’s challenge will be posted later today and comes from a Journaling prompt we did two weeks ago.    I hope to have students print out all of their kidblog entries and create a journal of their year, as their accounts will be deleted come August.

Special Notes –

* Please make sure to send in the two photos needed for the 5^th grade graduation bulletin board by Monday.

*  All of our box tops have been going to Mr. Getz, we hear there is a very good chance he gets a pie in the face, wahoo!

*  Doodle for Google winner was announced today, unfortunately none of our students won, however, it was a 2^nd grader from Wisconsin who did.  It can be seen today on Google’s homepage.

*   We will finish Junior Achievement and Guidance next week, where has the year gone?

* For graduation, students are being asked to wear their tie-dye shirt or West Middleton shirt.  A note is going home today with more information.

*  New on our website: a couple of pictures from the talent show taken by Mrs. Hyland, a video of the egg drop build, top 10 free educational game websites for kids, biome project information, as well as a list of different reading summer programs that have incentives for the kids.

* Technology party will be next Friday after lunch.  Students are solely responsible for whatever tech device they bring in.  For more information see our website.

* I have some dates for you to put on your calendars:, Junior Achievement Tuesday, May 22^nd 1:10 PM (final one), Technology Party Friday, May 25^th 1:00 PM, No school Monday, May 28^th , Sub in the afternoon Wednesday, May 30^th, Lock Out Wednesday, June 6^th, 5^th grade graduation Friday, June 8^th 1:30 PM.