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December Conferences
It was wonderful to meet with so many families and students in December. Thank you for taking time to come in and discuss your child’s progress. If you missed your conference I will be calling you this month.

Problem-Solving Challenge
Each afternoon after last recess I have set aside time for the Problem-Solving Challenge. It’s a time to practice reading messy problems and choosing strategies to solve them. Mr. Kane-Ronning, learning support teacher, will work with a flexible small group. The strategies I have introduced so far are: • Draw a labeled diagram • Make the problem simpler • Use a table • Look for a pattern • Guess and Check The class identified a strategy as something that helps a person solve a problem easier and faster. Often students use more than one strategy at a time and many problems can be solved in more than one way. Understanding how to use math strategies, gives students MATHEMATICAL POWER!

Mountain School
Thank you for returning Mountain School forms and money. This month the kids will revise their family persuasive letters and write to local groups, individuals, and businesses asking for donations to our scholarship fund. If you have not returned your payment information form, you will find it attached. In order to plan our fundraising, we need to know our scholarships needs. We will have a Chaperone Meeting in February. Mrs. Christiana and I will contact those who volunteered! Continue to send in forms and payments! Thanks!

Math Facts in a SNAP
• Look in your child’s Boomerang Folder for the December facts quizzes. • Use the quizzes to identify facts your child still needs to learn. • Students know they can check their progress by asking to take a challenge quiz.

Water System Field Trips!
Today, Kim Felder from the City of Bellingham helped the kids make models of the Bellingham Water System. On January 16, we will be going on a Field Trip to the Water Treatment Plant. This is a fun trip. Then on January 27, we have a half-day field trip to the Waste Water Treatment Plant! Wearing hard hats, we see all parts of the plant from the lab, the settling pools, to the incinerator. I’m excited to go again and…
 * We need 3-5 parent chaperones for each trip!**
 * Please return the slip on the field trip letter or just send me a note if you would like to help chaperone.**

Our Class Book about Systems
We worked all fall on understanding systems. It is the subject our class book sent to the publisher’s in December. If you ordered a book, they will come to school in February.