Week of April 22nd

Important Dates:

• May 15th and 16th - Math MCAS
• May 22nd - Field Day (rain date is June 5th)
• Band Concert - June 3rd from 7:00 - 8:00pm                                                                        (students need to arrive to the HS Auditorium at 6:15pm)
• Recorder Concert - June 17th - 9:00 - 9:45am

Reading:

• On Monday, students continued to work on their timeliner.
• This week, we began poetry workshop. Every other day, they're reading a book called Hate that Cat, which is a boy's journal, written entirely in poems, between him and his teacher.
• On days they're not reading with me, they are choosing from five poetry activities (poetry response, poetry footprint, poetry hunt, copycat and copycat creator). Be sure to ask them about each station.

Writing:

• Students began writing their own poetry. The first poems they worked on were poems that included similes. They brainstormed similes about themselves and drafted a poem. Then they drafted two more poems over the course of two days and chose one they wanted to take to publishing. 
• Also, students learned about personification, which is giving human like qualities to non-living things or animals. 
• Then students drafted a personification poem about an object in the classroom. Once they were done, they drafted two more poems and chose the one they wanted to publish.

  

Math:

• Students started the week off by answering two math open response questions. They learned how to take apart the directions and the questions and how to transfer their thinking to their answer page.
• We began a new multiplication and division unit. The first investigation is about two by two digit multiplication. We practiced estimating the answer before solving the problem since it helps us determine if our actual answer is reasonable.
• Students reviewed the partial products strategy and the arrays strategy to solve two by two digit multiplication.
• We reviewed geometry and measurement this week as we began reviewing for the MCAS.

                

Students showing their representation for solving two by two digit multiplication.

Social Studies:

• Students finished revising and editing their immigration scripts. They were given time to practice during the week.
• As we began our unit on Washington D.C., I asked the students to take a pop quiz. Using powerpoint, an image of an important building, monument or famous person would pop up. They had to write down what they thought it was or who they thought it was. 
• Students choose a building or monument to research. They worked in small groups to research using books and the databases on the library website.
• They began making a poster about their monument or building. 

My poster about the Washington Monument.