Good news!  In addition to Reading, LA, History, and Spelling, the Calendar page now includes major tests, quizzes and some assignments from Math and Science!  Let's hear it for Mr. Lewis!

Another way to study for tomorrows History/Geography test is to go to mapmastery.blogspot.com.

It is a blog Sam and Josiah set up and it has Map Mastery 5 loaded onto it so you can use it to study locations.  They intend to continue updating it with new maps as we come to them, so you might want to bookmark this site and keep coming back to it.

Great job boys!  Way to take initiative and help other people.

I want to apologize ahead of time.  My computer died yesterday, so it will be a bit harder for me to update Basmati and answer email.  A new computer is on the way and we're going to be fine, but if my responses to your emails are slow or there is no text in the response it's because I'm using various other computers to get my work done and they don't all work like my normal one.


Of course this has to happen on the last week of the trimester when you really want to know how you are doing and I really want to be starting report cards.  Oh well, better luck next trimester. :)

Don't forget!

For your History test this Wednesday know the following:
- Chapter 4 facts from chapter checkups and comprehension checks
- Map Mastery 5, both maps
- Be able to write a paragraph about the Atlantic Ocean including five facts


Here are some quizzes to help you study:
- Tanner's Quiz
- Bryce's Quiz

We will having a History test next Wednesday over chapter 4 and both Map Mastery 5 maps.  This test covers much less material than the Canada test, but coming off a long weekend it could still be difficult if you don't study just a little bit over the break.

In the spirit of the lip dub Conor's dad was a part of a few weeks back, I thought I would share another video that was done in one take.  Don't worry, the guy at the beginning is covered in paint. :)

When you kid gets home today, thank them for taking risks in their education.  Today, everyone in the class shared their topic sentences with the entire class, not knowing if they wrote it correctly or not.  They didn't know if classmates would talk about how effective it was, or if they would talk about how it really didn't work at all.

Everyone took the risk, and it was a great time of learning.  Many people were able to improve their topic sentences just because they were able to see a lot of examples from their friends.

Also, thank them for making our classroom a safe place to take risks.

Writing a meaningful topic sentence can be difficult, but one of the ways we can get better is by seeing a lot of examples of good topic sentences.  Even seeing examples of ineffective topics sentences can help us learn what not to do.  

Would you mind typing your topic sentence from your summary of section 4.4 of your history homework below?