English Language Arts:
- Students continued to read their biography books and meet with their book clubs. As they read, they tracked their idea and used that to launch their discussions. Here are some of the book club lessons that happened during the week:
- how to disagree politely
- supporting your thinking with evidence
- how to build on ideas
- and how to search for more information from group members
- Students worked together to determine the biggest life events, challenges and accomplishments from their person's life.
- They began making a timeline of that person's life using the Timeliner computer program.
Math:
- Due to the snow days, we were behind in the curriculum so we doubled up on math this week. Here are a few lessons that we did:
- Place value and rounding with larger numbers
- Solving subtraction problems using creative strategies
- Solving subtraction problems using the traditional algorithm
- Understanding when to use addition and subtraction
- Students completed their unit 5 math assessment on Friday.
Social Studies:
- We had an immigration enrichment program from the Tsongas Industrial History Center. They taught us about the motivations immigrants had for leaving their country and what life was like for them here in America. They explored immigration artifacts and made an immigration quilt representing what they learned (pictures below)
- Students finished planning their immigration scripts.
- They used the rest of the week to draft their scripts on google docs.
April Conferences - Wednesday, April 10
April Vacation - Week of April 15th
English/Language Arts:
- On Monday and Tuesday, the class completed the ELA portion of the MCAS.
- The rest of the week was spent reading their biography books and becoming active members of a book club. Some of the book club lessons were:
- Expectations for book clubs
- How to show respect in a book club
- How to keep the discussion on track
- How to build on ideas
- For this unit, we're trying to track our thinking using our reading response journals and not using stickies. The class came up with a list of ideas that could be tracked while reading a biography. Each person selected an idea to individually track and the group will each have an idea that they're working on together. They decided how they wanted to track their idea and they meet regularly in their book clubs to share their thinking.
Math:
- On Wednesday, we worked on solving distance problems up to 1,000 and different strategies they could use to solve these problems.
- On Thursday, students learned they learned a game called Close to 1,000. They had to make two three-digit numbers that were as close to 1,000 as could be. The difference between their number and 1,000 was their score. The person with the lowest score was the winner.
- On Friday, we reviewed different strategies for solving an addition problem two ways, one being the traditional algorithm. In addition, we worked on place value up to the thousands, how to round tens, hundreds and thousands and how to write numbers in expanded form.
Social Studies:
- This week, we finished reading about Ellis Island and took a simulated trip from Austria to New York.
- Students are in small groups and they are writing an immigration reader's theater script where they will immigrate from their assigned country to America. They will have to incorporate the things they've learned about immigration into their scripts.
Dates to know:
- Sports Day - Wednesday - April 3rd
- Day and Evening Conferences - Wednesday, April 3rd
- Day Conferences - Wednesday, April 10th
- Vacation - Week of April 15th
Writing:
- Students competed the MCAS long composition test. They were so thrilled to finally have it done.
- We took a break for the rest of the week to prepare for the MCAS reading test.
Reading:
- The goal this week was to complete more than one passage a day to build their stamina for the test.
- Tuesday - Toys Go Out (Fiction) and Into the Volcano (biography)
- Wednesday - Coaster History (Non-fiction)
- Thursday - Strongest of All (folktale), Fenway Park (Nonfiction) and The Lantern and the Fan (Folktale)
Math:
- We began our addition and subtraction unit. On Monday, students constructed their own 1,000's book and labeled important landmark numbers. We also practiced reading larger numbers.
- Students had to use their place value knowledge to locate numbers in their 1,000's book.
- Students learned a new game called Changing Places. This is where they had to add and subtract multiples of 10's and 100's to locate more numbers in their 1,000's book.
Social Studies:
- We continued to explore the Ellis Island website.
- We also explored another website that had a timeline of the different trends in immigration and the reasons behind it.
