· Needed: DRY ERASE Markers. We have depleted our supplies! Students use dry erase markers several times a day on small white boards during math, science and reading.
· Field Trip to Peck Elementary: Friday, December 9th from 11:00-1:30. We will be spending time with our pen pals. Students need to bring a sack lunch and drink.
· Holiday Gingerbread houses: we will be making these houses to compliment our Area and Perimeter math lesson. Students will be designing and calculating the area and perimeters of their holiday houses. Supplies needed: Graham crackers, white frosting, M & M’s, Dot’s, Tootsie Rolls, small candy canes, pretzels, Smarties, and any other candies for our little houses. We also need two or three parents who would have some extra time to glue graham crackers to small student milk cartons. (glue houses – Monday, December 12th. Students measure, design and create houses on December 15th.)
· Grandparent’s Day: was a wonderful success this year. Thank you for all the treats donated by parents.
· Night at Barnes and Noble: Thursday, December 8th, Denver West from 4:00-9:00. This will be a fun night. Part of the proceeds from this evening will come back to Van Arsdale Elementary.
· Winter Break – December 19 – January 4. Only reading log homework will be assigned over this holiday break.
· January 3rd – no school for students. Teacher workdays.
· Students return on Wednesday, January 4th, 2012. Student Supplies needed: many students have used up or no longer have some of the essential supplies they started the year with, such as glue sticks, scissors, dry erase markers, colored markers and colored pencils.
1. Welcome to ZooDesigner! You have been hired to design 5 enclosures for the animals at a local zoo. After successfully creating these enclosures, you will be given a certificate. Please print these certificates and turn in to class on Friday, December 9! How many certificates can YOU earn?! [Note to Parents: if you are unable to print at home, please provide a hand-written confirmation with signature.]
2. Constructed reading response: We have been working hard at responding to text in class. Here is a chance to show me what you know! Remember, read the text, and in your written response, include a topic sentence, 3 supporting details from the story, and a strong concluding sentence. Read the question and text below and write a constructed response:
QUESTION: Why do researchers believe dogs have the inborn talent for reading humans, thus making them people's choice for a pet? Give at least three examples from the text.
A Dog’s Life From Wild Wolf to Friendly Fido
How does the family dog know from the look on your face that he or she is in the doghouse? Believe it or not, your pooch did not learn from experience. There was no need. A recent study has found that dogs have an inborn talent for reading humans, and ability that may explain why they were one of people’s first commonly kept pets.Scientists have known for some time that dogs are descendants of wolves. But they didn’t know why some wolves were able to be domesticated, or tamed to live with or be used by humans.Researcher Brian Hare says that he has a pretty good idea. He found that dogs outscored both wolves and chimpanzees in tests to see which animal could best read human gestures and facial expressions to find hidden food. The conclusion? Dogs are born with a remarkable ability to read people, making a human-dog relationship very natural.Humans put dogs to good use, too. They used their new sidekicks to help them hunt, for protection, and for companionship.Hare believes that wolves developed this people-reading skill as a way of survival. The wolves that became domesticated were the ones that could read humans well enough to find scraps of food. The better those wolves got at reading humans, the more food they found, which increased their chances of survival. Over thousands of years, those wolves turned into today’s dogs.
