In search of...

Latitude, longitude, landmasses and bodies of water, the students of PGRoom209 were hard at work this week scouring maps and globes as part of our unit on Geography skills.  Don't forget that we have a quiz on Geography and our brief study of the United States Constitution* on Tuesday, September 27th.

Identifying the continents and oceans.

Answering Geography Challenge questions with partners.

Challenging each other to identify landmasses from clues.

* We did a brief overview of the Constitution in honor of Constitution Day (September 17th).  We will learn more after we study the American Revolution in the spring.

Numbers Great and Small

This week, Grade 5 began switching classes for Mathematics.  All four classes are now hard at work understanding the Base-10 number system while reading and writing numbers into the billions!  In PGRoom209, we're writing numbers instandard notation (123,456,789), word form (one hundred twenty-three million, four hundred fifty-six thousand, seven hundred eighty-nine), short-wordform (123 million, 456 thousand, 789), and expanded form (100,000,000 + 20,000,000 + 3,000,000 + 400,000 + 50,000 + 6,000 + 700 + 80 + 9).  Throughout all of our activities, we're focusing on the concepts of place value and the relationship of place values to one another.

    Next stop, decimals!  That's right, we've started extending our knowledge of whole number place value to decimal place values and finding out that we can use the same concepts and models.  Using the same familiar grids, Base-10 blocks, and number lines, we are taking the mystery out of the zone between 0 and 1.

Cross-posted on our new website: PGRoom209

Back-to-School Night

Pine Glen's Back-to-School Night will be on September 22, from 6:00 - 8:00 pm.  This is an adults-only evening. The night will begin in the cafeteria at 6:00 for opening remarks by Principal Lyons.  After opening remarks, you are free to tour classrooms.  There will be two informational sessions.  The first session will be held from 6:45 - 7:15.  The second session will run from 7:20 - 7:50.  You are welcome to join us in Room 209 for either session.  Remember to leave time to visit Art, Music, Physical Education, and our new and improved Library Media / Technology Center. Room 209 is in need of two or more ROOM PARENTS!   Room Parents are asked to get the word out about special occasions - email works wonderfully - and help organize one or two events during the year.   This position tends to be significantly less intense than in the younger grades.  If you can help out, please drop me a line at marcus@bpsk12.org or sign up at Open House. I look forward to seeing you at Open House!