What have you guys been up to?!

Whew!  It has been an intense past two days for me!  I'm not sure if I've explained how blogging works for me, but I wanted to just let you know what it looks like in terms of my reliability.  My afternoon schedule allows me three chunks of time to work on planning/blogging/checking papers/etc.  These are M-F at lunch (provided there are no meetings that I have to attend and that I am not on lunch duty), M/W/F during 6th period (again, barring meetings), and T/H 7th period.  For emails to be sent out to you on time (they should arrive to your inbox between 3 and 5p) I have to blog what I'm going to blog for the day by 3p.  So, in a case like yesterday and today when I'm on lunch duty and have afternoon meetings until 3p... sitting down to blog becomes incredibly difficult!  But, I try my best to keep to a schedule, thus insuring you get your daily update as regularly as possible. :)

With that being said, in first period we've been gearing up for our first test which will be on next Tuesday -- our first block week of the year.  A number of weeks throughout the year are chosen to be "block" weeks and during those weeks on Tuesdays and Wednesdays morning classes meet for 75 minutes (1st and 3rd on Tuesday and 2nd and 4th on Wednesday).  So, next Tuesday your children will take their first test in that 75 minute block period.  And then I won't get to see them until Thursday! :/

Today and yesterday was FILLED with review.  The kids have in their possession bunches of skill review (I've listed the skills below) that they have been working on in class and at home (at their discretion).

Monday we'll talk about our notebooks.  We've been booking it through this first unit and we haven't taken time to sort through our notebooks, clean them up, make sure everything is in order and labeled, what not.  During tests is when I collect notebooks and check to make sure they are in tip-top shape -- so your children might need to give some TLC to their notebooks soon. :)

Skills to be ready for Tuesday:

• Multiplying up to 3X3
• Dividing with two-digit divisors
• Exponents (writing them in expanded form, solving them)
• Multiples, Least Common Multiples
• Factors, Greatest Common Factors
• Prime Factorization and Factor Trees
• Prime vs. Composite Numbers

The majority of these (not exponents and prime factorization) are review.  I'm expecting great things from them!  Let me know if you have any questions between now and Tuesday or if you need any further clarity.  Again, thank you for your understanding and your support at home.  Have a great weekend!