Japan update

Japan Update:

The Bullet Train that travels from Tokyo to Osaka in less than 3 hours.

Our imaginary vacation is going so fast!!  We have been journaling about each day of our trip, and your children will bring home their scrapbook after we "head back to the States".  Our trip includes 14 days of sightseeing.  Today we learned about Japan's Bullet Train.  It goes over 200 miles an hour!  The inside looks like the seats of an airplane rather than like our trains that travel from Arlington Heights to Chicago.  

Here is a brief itinerary of our travels so far:

Day 1:  Flight!

Day 2:  Tokyo McDonalds, with LOTS of seafood entrees, unlike ours

Day 3:  Imperial Palace, where the emperor lives, like our White House

Day 4:  We relaxed at the "hotel".

Day 5:  Mt. Fuji, a dormant volcano and the highest mountain in Japan

Day 6:  Dr. Seuss' birthday, so we learned about him and read his stories

Day 7:  The Fish Market.. we will be doing some more research with this

Day 8:  TODAY - The Bullet Train

Day 9:  TOMORROW - Japanese Temple and money (yen)

I'll stop there, but know we have several more days of sightseeing and learning!  I hope bringing up these topics with your child will start some wonderful conversations.

This week is a testing week for us… we are taking two review spelling tests, we took one mid-year review math test and we will do two timed writing assessments.  These are NOT tests your child can or should have studied for.  I am finishing up testing 1-1 with all readers to get current reading levels.  This takes up to 30 minutes per child, so I may not get to reading groups this week.  I will include all results with your child's Progress Report since we are not having conferences for me to share them with you.  Please don't hesitate to contact me after you receive your child's Progress Report, if I haven't explained things thoroughly enough.

One area you can help your child study for is timed addition and subtraction facts.  Flash cards or online games/apps with one minute timers are the best practice for this.  Each timed test we take has 24 problems on it.  The children are given one minute fifteen seconds to complete all 24 problems correctly.  If they do that, they move onto the next test.  Some children are still stuck on the first test.  My highest tester is on Test 5, to give you some perspective when you see your child's come home.  They just took one yesterday and these are in mailboxes now.  We will take another one before the end of the week.

Red Platy

Finally, today we got some new fish!  The kids were VERY excited!  We have been learning a lot about how to care for freshwater fish for our tank.  We added three red platy's and two green glow tetras.  Did you know the platy's give live birth, unlike many fish that lay eggs?  The babies often get eaten, so I did request all males so we would not experience this!  Let's hope we actually got just males!  

Til next time….