Class Update December 9, 2017

Important Dates:

Saturday, December 16th- Breakfast with Santa at Long 8:30-11

Wednesday, December 20th- Class Holiday Party 2:00-3:00

Thursday, December 21st- January 3rd- NO SCHOOL

Thursday, January 4th- Return to school

Writing:  We finished up our informational pieces on a Native American topic last week.  The students have begun their second informational piece.  They chose a science related topic, and most students are writing about animals.  A few are writing about space.  We will finish up these pieces before the end of the quarter. 

Reading:  We are exploring informational texts and discussing how to find the main idea.  We talk about how informational books often have more than one main idea since they are so full of information.  In book clubs, we will be reading shorter informational texts until winter break.  Then, we will start new fiction books when we return.

Math:  In math, we have been learning to write expressions and apply the order of operations.  Soon, we will be starting fractions.  With their math partners, the students have been doing activities to spiral review what we have learned so far this year as well as doing a variety of problem solving projects.

Science:  We have wrapped up our unit on water and the water cycle.  We have been doing a lot of hands on activities about water!  In one activity, students used estimation and graphing to discover the surprising differences in the amounts of fresh and salt water on Earth.  Below is the bar graph we made comparing the amount of salt water, fresh water, and frozen fresh water on Earth.  The kids couldn't believe that liquid fresh water was such a small percentage!  You can barely see it on the graph.

My favorite activity was when the students had to construct an explanation about a surprising occurrence: the existence of underground water.  They played a game in which they had to obtain and combine information about groundwater in order to selected the best site to build a town for them to live in.  In the end, they found out if they would survive or not in the place they selected.

This past week the students explored the effects of natural hazards such as tornadoes, hurricanes, and dust storms.  They built a small model house and roof and had to design multiple solutions to keep the  house from blowing away in a windstorm.  They had to evaluate their choices and decide which was the worked the best at keeping the house in place.  They had some creative ideas!

Social Studies:  Ms. Scalise has been teaching about the Bill of Rights and the three branches of government.  

Class Update November 17, 2017

Important Dates:

Tuesday, November 21- Field trip to see Wonder movie

Wednesday- Friday, November 22-24- No school

Wednesday, December 6- Early release (dismissal at 1:40)

December 21- January 3- Winter Break


Writing:  We are currently working on our first informational piece.  Students have chosen a topic related to Native Americans that they are interested in.  They have been busy researching their topic, and we have been learning a variety of strategies to use in informational writing.  We should be finished with this piece in a few weeks, and then students will select another informational topic for their second piece.


Reading:  We are focusing on nonfiction in our reading lessons.  Students are learning about the different text structures that authors use when writing informational text.  Some of these text structures include: cause and effect, compare and contrast, description, sequence, and problem/solution.  We are continuing to read fiction books in our book clubs.  Students will finish their second book club in the next two weeks.


Math:   In math, we have been learning how to add and subtract decimals.  Also, we have reviewed place value by learning to round to decimal places.   We will have a quiz over these skills on Tuesday.  After we come back from Thanksgiving, we will move on to chapter 7.  This chapter includes: order of operations, patterns, and ordered pairs.


Science:  In science, we just finished up our projects on the water cycle.  We also learned about the two main types of storm clouds and how to tell if a storm is headed our way.  We will soon have a test over the water cycle and weather.  After that, we will move on to properties of matter.

Here are some pictures of our STEM projects the students recently completed.  They chose a type of Native American home to learn about, and then they built a model of the home.  They did a great job! 

Class Update October 28, 2017

Important Dates:

Sunday, October 29th- Trunk or Treat at Long from 4:00-6:00 in the parking lot

Tuesday, October 31st- Halloween parade at 1:40 and party from 2:00-3:00

Wednesday, November 8th- Early Release (dismissal at 1:40)

Friday, November 10th- Veterans Day Assembly

Friday, November 17th- Picture retake day


Writing:  At the end of the quarter, we had a pajama/flashlight day to celebrate our personal narrative writing!  We turned out the lights and read each others stories with flashlights.   The students enjoyed reading the compliments that their classmates left for them about their writing.  Below are pictures of students conferencing with their writing partners before they completed their personal narratives.

                                     

We have just begun our next writing unit where students will be learning about informational writing.  We are learning about the importance of paraphrasing when doing research on a topic.  The students practiced paraphrasing with their writing partners. 

Our first informational piece will have a social studies connection.  Students will be choosing a topic about Native Americans.  They will be able to find something related to Native Americans that they are interested in.  Some examples are food, homes, art, weapons, sports, and games.


Reading:  We just finished up our first read aloud book called Home of the Brave.  When reading this book, we focused on theme, characters, author's perspective, and more.  In small groups, we just finished up learning about characters.  We will soon begin learning about the different ways an author can organize informational text.  The students started their second book club book last week, and they seem excited about their books!  Students chose what book they are reading for their book club, and they had a variety of different genres from which to choose.  Ask them to tell you about the book they are reading!

Math:  We just finished up chapter 3 with our quiz on Thursday.  We will be moving on to chapter 4, which is also division but with two-digit divisors.  Please have your child continue to practice his or her multiplication facts at home.  Most students do not have them memorized, and this slows them down a lot during math.

Science:  We are having a lot of fun in science!  The water cycle and weather are the focus of our current unit.  We learned that heat speeds up evaporation by doing an experiment with paper towels.  We put drops of water on paper towels, and then we placed one of the paper towels on a bag of hot water and one on a bag of cold water.  Students observed that the drop on the paper towel over the hot water evaporated much faster than the one on the cold water. 

To learn about condensation, we put hot water in a plastic cup and placed another cup on top as a lid.  Students noticed that the water vapor that was formed from the hot water evaporating cooled down when it reached the top of the cup and condensed back into liquid water drops.  Then, we repeated the experiment with ice on the lid to show how condensation can be sped up by colder temperatures. 

We made shaving cream clouds and added drops of water onto the cloud until it got too heavy and precipitated. 

Social Studies:  Miss Scalise has been teaching about the United States becoming an independent country and how a new government was formed under the Constitution.  Students are starting a project where they research an important person from America's history and learn how that person helped make changes to our country. 

Class Update September 30, 2017

Important Dates:

Friday, October 13th- End of first quarter; Half day for students

Monday, October 23rd- Parent teacher conferences; Book fair begins

Wednesday, October 25th- Parent teacher conferences

Friday, October 27th- NO SCHOOL

Sunday, October 29th- Trunk or Treat


Writing:  We have finished our first personal narrative pieces, and we are currently working on our second narrative piece.  Students are focusing on adding in a blend of dialogue, action/description, and their thoughts and feelings into their narratives.  This helps create an interesting story for the reader.  The goal is to finish this piece by the end of the quarter.


Reading:  We have been learning about how the author's point of view and perspective affect us as readers.  We also just started learning about the theme of fiction stories in our mini lessons.  Guided reading groups have been going well, and students have been finding evidence in the text to support their thinking.  Another component of our reading time is spent on book clubs.  The book clubs meet on Tuesdays and Fridays.  Students are responsible for reading the chapters assigned as well as writing a thick question to discuss with their groups before the meeting date.  Students should be finished with their first book clubs in a few weeks, and then they will decide what they want to read next.  Below are pictures of book clubs in action!

Math:  We just had a quiz over the beginning of chapter two which focused on exponents and prime factorization.  The rest of the chapter deals with multiplication.  Please have your child practice their multiplication facts at home nightly so they can become automatic.  This will really help them as we are doing multiplication and division.

Science:  In science, we have been learning about designing fair tests when performing investigations.  We just started our Oreo project. Students will be making observations and designing an investigation to experiment with Oreos.  Next week, check with your child to see what testable question they come up with relating to Oreos!  Below are pictures of the students making qualitative observations of the cookies. 

Social Studies:  Miss Scalise will begin teaching about the Declaration of Independence in Social Studies.