Week of 11th and 18th

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving break!!!

Reading
Written By: Brien, Jack C, James, Stacey, Giana

• On Tuesday, we learned about how our characters have motivations and struggles and how they deal with it.
• We learned to use percise language in our stickies to describe our characters.
• Today we learned that some authors repeat things that are small because they can be really important later in the story.
• We talked again about the objects or ideas that repeat and how they could really mean something bigger. When we read A Bad Case of Stripes, we learned that it wasn't really about her eating lima beans, it was about her being herself and liking lima beans even if other people don't.
• We wrapped up our theories unit and spied on ourselves as readers. We looked at the stickies that we made and sorted them to see which ones we're doing well and which ones we need to do more of and then we set new reading goals.

 

Writing
Written by: Tommy, Annie, Shane, Derek, and  Kaitlyn

• We learned how to write a business letter and how it is formated.
• We took our time and wrote our letter to a landmark or landform in the United States and requested information to use for our regions project.
• We revised and edited our letter.
• We typed our business letter and had a great time on the computers!!!
• We started our new persuasive unit and came up with topics about school that we can write about.
• We picked our topics and stated planning all the reasons to support our argument.
• We planned out the different paragraphs for our essay.

  

Math
Written by: Parsa, Liam, Paris, Hallie, Tyler

• We worked on division problems with remainders in our math work books.
• At the the end of the week we did a three day workshop with three stations.
• During the workshop, we played Big Array/Small Array, Missing Factors and division fun with Mrs. Stygles.   
• We practiced solving more division problems with remainders on Monday and Tuesday.
• Mrs. Stygles gave us a grocery store flyer and we had to plan our Thanksgiving dinner using calculators.

 

Social Studies
Written by: Keith, Cassidy, Amy, JackF, Brenna

• On Tuesday we learned about map scales. We practiced finding distances of places in the United States.
• The next day we reviewed geography vocabulary and practiced things like map scale.
• We did a map check in on everything we’ve learned.
• On Friday, we had a surprise States and Capitals Test.
• On Monday, we corrected the test to see what we need to study.
• We learned what the different regions of the United States are and colored a map to show the different regions. We also made states and capitals flashcards.

Week of November 5th

Social Studies
By: Liam, Shane, Paris, Parsa, Hallie, and Tyler

• On Monday, we worked on using map keys to identify pictures and symbols on a map.

• On Tuesday we read two pages about longitude and latitude. After, we worked on a worksheet to practice longitude and latitude.
• Thursday we learned about cardinal directions and intermediate directions. We compared states to each other using directions.
• The class learned about map scales on Friday. Map scales are use to show how far places are from each other.

Reading
Written by: Brien, Cassidy, Sophie, James, Stacey

To help us with book talks

• On Monday we noticed how supporting characters react to the main character. This can tell us a lot about our character.
• On Tuesday, we worked on making good stickies that will tell us a lot about our characters instead of boring stickies like she’s nice, she’s mean or wow, he is a bully.
• On Thursday, we started to sort sticky notes into different piles like questions, predictions, retellings and what we notice about our characters. Sorting them helps us find the big ideas.
• On Friday, the class continued sorting sticky notes into piles and reading books. When we read we can still make different stickies but put the ones that help us grow theories into our character theory pile.

Writing

Written by: Tommy, Annie, Giana, Derek, Kaitlyn

• On Monday we talked about opinion writing which means to take a side of the argument. We brainstormed places where we see opinion writing.

• On Tuesday we read an article about ads on a school bus. We then took a side and wrote about if there should be ads on a school bus.
• Next, we read about the sugary drink ban in New York. We wrote about whether or not we agree with the ban.
• On Thursday, we discussed the word perspective and what that has to do with opinion writing. We reviewed the story of the Three Little Pigs and then read The True Story of the Three Little Pigs. That book is told from the wolf’s perspective.
• We all took a side of the Three Little Pigs argument and came up with reasons for our side. Then we had a debate in class about who was telling the truth.
• 

                  
 

Math
Written by: Jack F, Amy, Keith, and Brenna and Jack C.

• On Monday we started a math workshop. Some students played Big Array, Small Array while others solved multiplication workbook pages with Mrs. Stygles.
• Tuesday the workshop continued. Also we took an assessment and we did some challenges too.
• On Wednesday, we learned how to solve multiplication using partial products and we practiced it a lot.
• Thursday, the whole class did partial products up to the one hundreds and thousands place.
• On Friday, we did division problems and learned how to check them with multiplication.

Solving multiplication using arrays

Our first attempt with division!

ELECTION RESULTS - 2012!!!!!

4S has voted and election results are in! The winner was....

Mitt Romney!!!!!


***Sorry for the delay, I've been trying to include the voting video but with no success. I'll keep trying!!!!

Week of October 31st

Announcements
Last week, I experienced a new first: A Hurricane Day! Hopefully this isn't a sign of what's in store for the winter!

Conferences will begin on November 7th. The twenty minutes will go by quickly, so if there is anything specific you want to discuss, please feel free to email me in advance.

No School - Veteran's Day (November 12th)

I want to thank Mrs. Cox and Mrs. McCusker for organizing our Halloween Party! Here are a few photos from the party.
     

Writing: 

• The goal for the week was to publish their story. To do this, they copied their stories over, drew illustrations and decided how to put it together.
• Stories will be handed out to parents at conferences so we can go over the grading together.
• Parents are encouraged to read the stories with their child and celebrate the writing skills they are including. With this being their first, true published piece, all students will have goals to continue working on.

Reading: 

• The focus is to continue developing theories about characters. These lessons will help students develop their inferring skills. Lessons from this week:
• Good readers read characters the same way we read people in real life. 
• Readers pay attention to when the character acts out of character and their reasons for doing so.
• Readers pay attention to the objects that the character holds close.

Math

• We spent time solving complicated multiplication problems by breaking them into easier, friendlier numbers. 
• Students spent time using the array model to break apart bigger numbers and used this model solve multiplication problems. 
• Students learned how to play a game called Big Array, Small Array to practice breaking numbers apart. In addition, it helped them practice writing equations to show how the two smaller numbers equal the big number. 

                 

                 

Science/Social Studies

• Students took the science test this Wednesday. Hopefully, I will pass them back by next week. 
• Students are starting a new social studies mini-unit about geography and mapping. They have been doing some reading in our Junior Geographer Atlas books.
• They spent some time discussing the difference between globes and maps and how to decode maps.