Language Arts:
Students have been busy with the hard work of revising and editing, workshopping with peers, and editing one another’s work, before publishing. Students worked on completing heart maps, as we introduce more choice into writing. Most classes have begun independent spelling studies looking at patterns and word families based upon assessments. We continue to read daily in class, and share what we are reading through a “status of the class” practice each morning. Next week we will be heading into conference preparation. Children will prepare a reflection and select work to share both electronically, and at conference. Science: In Jim’s class, we have been continuing our work with Archimedes Principle, discovering what properties of an object makes it float or sink in a fluid using water and using the ideas of balanced and unbalanced forces, weight, and buoyant force. We have also continued working with Newton’s Laws of Motion and how they apply to everyday life. We have begun experimenting with how the height of a ramp affects the speed of a sphere rolling down a ramp. We have drawn scatter plots as a tool to help us analyze and make sense of our data. We have continued our work reading non-fiction and note-taking using Cornell notes. Have your child explain them to you! At the end of this week, we worked with Lauren’s class to make hot air balloons out of tissue paper. We have our launch date set for Tuesday morning and are hoping for no wind or precipitation! Lauren’s class has been wrapping up our study of buoyancy (in water at least) with a good old “Bill Nye the Science Guy” video and have moved into our study of Newton’s Laws of Motion. We had wheelie good fun demonstrating the three laws using rolling carts in the gym. Each team took pictures to use in a poster demonstrating the three laws. This Friday, students worked in teams with students from Jim’s class to build tissue paper hot air balloons which we will launch on Tuesday morning and investigate the displacement of cold air by hot air. Students also watched a video and read non-fiction text closely in teams to understand and record information in their interactive science notebooks. Next week, students will review what they have learned so far, study for an upcoming quiz in small groups, and take an assessment. Social Studies: Over the last two weeks in Social Studies, we have been applying our G.R.A.P.E.S. (Geography, Religion, Achievements, Politics, Economics, Social Structure) structure to the ancient civilization of Mesopotamia. By the way, do you know this song yet? If not (and you have a student in Lynn or Peter’s Social Studies classes) ask him or her to teach you. Our study of Mesopotamia has included mapping work, reading comprehension on the various aspects of Mesopotamian culture, the processing of a Time Life film entitled, The Search for Eden which examines the early develop of the field of archeology and the lessons learned about Mesopotamian cultures. Next Tuesday, we will have our first Social Studies assessment. Students today and Monday are organizing their notebooks and answering some study questions in preparation for the in-class assessment on Tuesday. Next week, we will reflect for conferences and then move into our case study of Ancient China. Spanish: In Lynn’s Spanish 1A class, we have continued our work on how to describe ourselves and people around us. This week’s work focused around students re-writing the hit Spanish single, Soy Guapo, using their new vocabulary and sentence structures in new and unique ways. We’ll be performing these on Monday. In the coming weeks, we will move into a study about talking about time, numbers, the calendar as we launch our first cultural holiday study of Días de los Muertos. We also have started the process of self-evaluating in preparation for conferences. This past week, I met with each student to review their Spanish notebooks and to conference with them about their assignment completion. Ask your Spanish 1A student about this and remember to check out our Spanish 1A website for more information and links. In Pat’s Spanish 1A class, the learning continues to be vibrant, meaningful and fun as well. Please check out Pat’s Spanish 1A page for updates and more information. Social Emotional: According to Linda Lantieri in Building Emotional Intelligence, “Children’s lives are much more stressful today as well [as adults’]. When adults live in a hurried, frantic pace, their children are at the receiving end. Our society itself, in the United States, has changed in many ways that increase pressure on children and compromise their childhood...There is a constant push for children to achieve at academic skills earlier, and so school becomes a bigger source of stress in their lives.” In our homerooms, we wanted to explore this so we created a survey based on a national Kids Poll that all children took around the following questions: How would you define stress? Over the course of the week, do you experience stress? Over the course of the month, do you experience stress? What are your top worries or sources of stress? How do you feel when you experience stress? How do you feel (in your body) when you are stressed? What do you do to manage or deal with stress? Next week, we’ll analyze the data and see if we can make some generalizations. In upcoming weeks, we will introduce some techniques and skills in cultivating children’s inner strength which will help them deepen their ability to quiet their minds and relax their bodies. Math: In Jim’s class, we have finished our work with ratios and unit rates (for now at least). We are now working on creating flowcharts to detail the process of adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing fractions. The focus is on understanding not only how but why we go through each step in the processes of combining fractions. Fractions can be challenging to work with and form the basis for much of the mathematical work students will pursue through high school and into college. In Peter’s class, we brought together many concepts and skills we’ve learned over the past month. students worked together in groups to complete the table to satisfy the missing values, create a double number line diagram to support the values, and develop an equation to support the values. Then students associated ratios with ordered pairs and plotted the ordered pairs in the 𝑥–𝑦 coordinate plane. Students then graphed collected data on the coordinate plane. On Thursday, we had an end-of-the unit assessment. Next week, we will explore percentages. In Lauren’s math class, students have been working on using place value to understand our base 10 system. We are using place value charts to recognize that each sequence of three digits is read as hundreds, tens, and ones followed by the naming of the corresponding base thousand unit (thousand, million, billion). Students use place value as a basis for comparison of whole numbers, and then to learn or practice rounding numbers to the nearest hundred, thousand, ten thousand and hundred thousand using vertical number lines. The practice of finding the midpoint on a vertical number line extends their number sense. In Lynn’s class, we have finished our first mid-module assessment on decimals thus far. All students worked on revision work, identifying misunderstandings (or miscalculations) and making necessary adjustments. This week we are moving into operations (addition and subtraction) of decimal numbers. We will also be preparing reflections to be shared at conferences. Academic Lab: In Peter’s academic lab, we practiced learning multiplication facts to automaticity, adding fractions with like and unlike denominators, and setting up Khan Academy accounts and practicing sixth grade concepts and skills. In Jim’s academic lab, many of us continue work from math class by deepening understanding of concepts, practicing using and understanding methods to work with operations focused on decimals and place value. Others have been working on mathematical puzzles using 4 9’s, tangrams, and mystery grids. Many of us have been reinforcing our thinking and computational skills using Khan Academy. During Lauren's academic lab, students are practicing keyboarding, multiplication tables and working to understand and apply our lessons. Some students are working in groups on Do the Math curriculum to build fluency with addition and subtraction facts. Comments are closed.
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