This is a crazy week that we are about to start. I will be out tomorrow as I need to go to Milwaukee to see my grandfather. He was sick over the weekend and they are saying a number of things are wrong. So, we are going to visit and get complete answers. I will be back Wednesday. Presentation start Wednesday and will continue Thursday. I will set some time aside on Friday as well if we need it. The students have had some questions over the last couple of days so I will try to answer them all at the bottom of this paragraph. I will also attach the two documents that they brought home (guide and directions) to the bottom of the newsletter. They are also located in the Black History Month Newsletter.
Reading: Reading will move as our normal week. I am currently building in the way things worked last week. If it works this week then that will be how the weeks go for the remainder of the year. This week we are covering homonyms and homophones. These are always tricky and a lot of them were tripped up on the pre-test. We will also take a deeper look at compound sentences and how they differ from simple sentences. We will look at dependent and independent clauses and how they work. Our essential question for the week is, "How do people fly?" We started off the lesson talking about the different ways people can fly (plane, jet, hot air balloon, etc) and the reason why people may fly (work, vacation, adventure). They will read a story about the Wright brothers and how they were part of the first batch of people to fly. Writing prompt finally made its way back. Please be sure to encourage them to answer the question in a complete paragraph, but also encourage them to write more if they need too. science: We are finally getting back into our science curriculum. Today we did an exploration using clay soil, foam soil, sandy soil, sandy sand. We compared their appearance and their texture. We discussed if any of the soils would allow you to grow a plant. We then combined two different types together and observed how they mixed. We noticed that the sandy sand overpowered all of the other types of soil. We concluded that because of its fine texture, it was able to slip between the other soil components and stick out more. Tuesday, they will begin their lesson on soil. They will discuss what soil is, the 4 substances that make up soil, the different types of soil, why is soil needed, and a lot more. I am glad the cold weather is almost over so we can begin our unit on plants where we can try to grow some plants of our own. Important Dates:
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There were some behavior hiccups that required us sitting down and having a long discussion. Hopefully we do not have to have another one. However, if we do we will also take some time out of the day to practice rules, and expectations again like the first week of school. Outside of that things are great and we're moving along perfectly.
Math: The new topic threw them for a loop. We've spent so much time with multiplication and division that adding and subtracting seemed very foreign to them. We actually spent two days on lesson one instead of the one day because they struggled with not only getting the bar diagrams, but also with estimation and doing the actual adding and subtracting. However, after day two they all seemed to pretty much understand it. Today, we did a similar lesson where they were doing 2-step word problems but with multiplication and division. Surprisingly this lesson went A LOT smoother and I think it is because we've seen so much time multiplying and dividing that it is becoming second nature. This topic is pretty short, with it only having 4 lessons. We will spend an extra day on lesson 3, as it involves them using all four operations in one lesson. Reading: We have a very compact and complex week ahead of us. Since we were off Monday, we are a day behind on our subject areas. To offset the reading curriculum, I plan to do a lot of the heavy loaded things together in class. Which will result in reading homework being very slim. If this process works for us, then I will work out a plan similar for the rest of the year. However, the work that is not finished does come home as homework per school policy as stated during curriculum night. The essential question for the week is, "how do animals adapt to challenges in their habitat?" Today we talked about different animals such as bears and birds, and we read about gray wolfs and red foxes. We will spend time with comparing and contrasting using Venn diagrams. We will also practice using context clues to help us understand what we do not know. In grammar we will look at main and helping verbs. I noticed that they are still struggling with paragraph formation and answering something completely in a paragraph, so they will have writing homework on Thursday. Social Studies: We've started our small in class project that they will have finished by tomorrow and it'll be up on the bulletin board by Friday. They are working with a partner to research a person given to them (Sojourner Truth, Benjamin O. Davis Jr., Mary Mcleod Bethune, W.E.B Du Bois, Booker T. Washington, Coretta Scott King, Lewis Howard Latimer, Daniel Hale Williams) After collecting the information, they then compiled the information into a paragraph. They will then create a small 11x17 poster for their person using the picture provided and the information found. They are given creative freedom so they are allowed to add anything that is appropriate to their poster. After they go up, I will be sure to take pictures and post them on classdojo. Important Dates:
I am so glad that I could sit down with you guys! With that being said there isn't much to report. We've had a rough couple of days getting back into the swing of things. Hopefully we bounce back tomorrow. We have our Valentines Day party Wednesday at 2pm. If you plan to bring anything that would require a lot of cleaning (cream, syrup, frosting, etc) please let me know and I will let Mrs. Brucotto know so that we can use the common room space as well. If you have any questions, please let me know!
Math: We finished topic 6, and will take a test tomorrow morning. Please review what you can with them especially the distributive property and lesson 6-7 with them, as those were the tough problems for them today during our review lessons. On Thursday, we will skip over to topic 11, where we will begin to work with 2-step word problems using addition and subtraction. These should be fairly easy, but it would involve them using bar diagrams and reading diagrams to help them solve. Reading: Once again, we started the week off by taking the test from last week. Next week should be different as the plan is for them to take the reading test for this week, this week. The test we took Monday was a fairly simple one, as they all finished it quick, and were confident in their answers. The essential question for the week is "how can you use what you know to help others?" We discussed the essential question on Monday before lunch, and we touched on it a little before reading one of the stories for the week. A lot of the examples that they gave were animal related (dogs having a great sense of smell; horses have excellent hearing). We are still in the world of point of view and the time were are learning how to identify the person who is speaking. Sometimes the answer is very clear, and other times the answer will be one that they will have to identify. We will also discuss realistic fiction, and how to identify that genre while we are reading. We are still discussing prefixes and in grammar we will discuss contractions with the word not. Important Dates:
We are back in business, however the week is short :( Today, their Tuesday folders are very light. Some have assignments and some do not. I have not had time to grade papers as I've dedicated a lot of time to the yearbook. However, today and Wednesday I will grade all of the assignments that I have and send them home on Thursday. So, I will need them to make sure that their Tuesday folders are back by Thursday.
Math: We are getting ready to finish our chapter on area. We have one more "official" lesson, but I will do some small assignments before the last lesson to solidify their confidence in area. I looked over the assessment for this chapter and it is simple. There are some "trick" questions that I will go over during the small assignments that I plan to cover with them. However, I do think the book assessment will be alright. They seem to like area, and most are having fun with it. However, he irregular shapes, such as a incomplete rectangle, gives some of them a hard time. They struggle with understanding where to break the shape, and what numbers they need to change/don't need. So, we will work on that some more as well. We will revisit the world of area of triangle and circles, and the idea of exact and estimate. Reading: We started the week off by taking the test from last week. The test itself seem to have been an easy one, as they all were pretty confident with their answers. I also didn't hear a lot of "oh man," as we went over answers. Due to the short week, that is how next week will run as well. Our essential question for the week is "what choices are good for us?" We have not discussed the essentially question as we will do that tomorrow. This week we revisit the world of point of view and root words. With point of view, the curriculum wanted them to discuss basic point of view and what it means, and how an authors point of view is similar and different than the narrators point of view. We spent some time with root words, and used our prefix and suffix flashcards to help us. We broke down the words, and used what we already know to help us define the words. We focused on amazement, aromatic, and admirable. This week our stories are folk talks, so we will review the components of them. We will discuss the reason for folktales, and how they have something for us to learn. In grammar we will focus on linking verbs, and how we are supposed to use them. We have a lot to cover in such a short week. Science: We are finally diving back into our science book. We had to recap the water cycle, weather and climate. We watched two videos by Bill Nye to help us during our review. Yesterday we started lesson three, which is on minerals and rocks. I would like for us to try to go outside one day next week, or when the snow has melted completed and try to find some rocks, so we can see if we can examine them for more than one mineral. If not, then we will do something indoors using technology or using the rocks from Monte. Social Studies: We started our Black History Month discussion today, and we started off by discussing the reason we have Black History Month and the way it was started. We will continue by talking about different people, mostly people on the list that were not selected. We will also learn about some important dates in history, like the creation of the 13th and 14th amendments. Important Date:
Since February is Black History Month, our students will be assigned a biography project on a famous African American/important African American inventor. They received a list on Friday that they would have to choose from. I hope you all had a chance to go over the list to select their top 3 choices. I encouraged them to choose someone that they are not familiar with to make this a more worthwhile learning experience. Students are being given a packet to help with outlining this project. Please be sure to encourage them to work on this piece by piece each night – do not wait until the last minute! Be sure to encourage them to write the information in their own words and not directly from their source. However, that may be a challenge, so they will need your help. This project may require taking trips to the library but here are some online sources that can help:
For the report, they should make sure that the information is in logical order. Here is an outline that may help when writing the paper: Paragraph 1:Introduce the person by telling the person’s name and why they are important. Try not to start with “My report is on…” Be creative! Paragraph 2:This paragraph should include…
Paragraph 3:This paragraph should include…
Paragraph 4:This paragraph should include…
The project, both the report and the poster are due Wednesday, February 27, 2019. Please let me know if you have any questions. I look forward to seeing all of the projects! Autumn- Thurgood Marshall David- Barak Obama Ellen- James "cool papa" Bell Johnnie- Jackie Robinson Annalise- Louis Armstrong Laney- Ella Baker Andy- Mae Jemison Emma- Langston Hughes Luke- Bo Diddley Hudson- Rosa Parks Naomi- Ruby Bridges Yanni- Whitney M. Young Jr. Katharina- George Washington Carver Vinny- Jack Johnson Taliah- Bessie Coleman Nathan- Jesse Owens
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