Happy Friday everyone!
It was so great to see so many smiling faces Monday morning and to listen to the stories of the fun everyone had over April Vacation and on Easter! We started the week with a Connections group where we read Twenty-One Elephants by Phil Bildner and then were challenged to build a straw bridge that would hold the elephants (marbles). It's always great to see the old and the young working together to solve a problem. We ended our Monday with an incredible enrichment program about Electricity and Magnetism, from the Museum of Science. Students were able to see lots of examples of conductors and how magnets and electricity together form strong forces! Check out the pictures in our gallery! (THANK YOU PTO FOR SPONSORING!) In Math this week focused on reviewing Addition and Subtraction of Decimals. We looked at word problems, models and algorithms to be sure we would remember to line up our decimals when solving. We had some fun doing a SCOOT review! This is when cards with different problems are hung up around the room and students take a clipboard and scratch paper to solve each one. They have a grid to write their answers on and this one had a twist - they could use their IPADs to scan a QR code that would let them know if their answer was correct. Multi-step work problems were definitely the most challenging, as students needed to remember they sometimes needed to add and then subtract their total from a whole number. For example, Suzanne wanted to run 5 miles during the week. On Monday she ran 2.2 miles and on Wednesday she ran 1.67 miles. How many miles would she need to run on Saturday to hit her goal? Students did a nice job adding the 2.2 + 1.67 = 3.87, but then some tried to subtract 3.87 - 5 rather than 5.00 - 3.87. We will continue to review these types of problems to help them build confidence! Today we began to explore multiplying a decimal by a whole number and how to use estimation to help us! In Reading, we have been continuing our work looking for figurative language in our independent reading novels and also have been spending time working on reviewing strategies to use when answering open response questions. Finding evidence to support their thoughts is key and they have made nice progress in this area. We also began to read The Fighting Ground by Avi as our whole class novel. This is a wonderful story which connects with our studies of American History. Students have been doing a great job making predictions and backing up their predictions with specific details from the story. Today, we were able to spend some time looking at our wonderful March Madness projects! I was so impressed with the effort and enthusiasm put into their work! We had dioramas, flip grids, movie trailers, and game boards! Love the diversity and creativity! In Social Studies, students are researching some basic facts about one of the thirteen original colonies. They are creating a brochure about the founding of their colony, geography. food, major industries, recreation and other interesting facts. We will continue our work on these next week - this is an in school project! We will be doing lots of reading over the next two weeks about some causes of the tension between Britain and the colonies as we get ready to dive into the American Revolution. Students always love this part of the year as we talk about some of the major events in American History! In Science, we finished up our study of the Earth's Systems and are excited for our program on Monday about Watersheds. This will tie in perfectly to all that we have been studying about the water cycle, weathering, erosion and deposition. Thanks to the PTO for once again bringing in awesome programs for us! Thank you also to the parents who have volunteered to come in and help facilitate the different stations! Yesterday we started our deep dive into Animals and Ecosystems. Students had some fun classifying lots of picture cards of animals as we discussed how classification can help scientists. Today we looked at Vertebrates and Invertebrates. I was very impressed with the work students did in their Student Field Guides. We looked at the 5 classes of Vertebrates: Fish, Bird, Amphibian, Reptile and Mammal as well as the 6 classes of Invertebrates: Sponge, Cnidarian, Mollusk, Worm, Arthopod, Echinoderm. We looked at lots of pictures to see what characteristics each had and read some facts so we could be come resident "experts!" We will move on to Life Cycles as well as Animal Reproduction & Inheritance next week! So some questions you might want to ask your child:
Next week we have ELA MCAS on Tuesday and Wednesday. Students are ready for this, they just need to be confident and relax! We will not have homework next week, students should get a good night's sleep and have a hearty breakfast. Snacks should be as normal, students will keep them at their seat and I will have breaks during testing for them to eat, stretch and relax! Thanks as always for your support, it has been great meeting with you for conferences and I look forward to finishing the year with lots of learning and adventures with your child! Cheers! Maura Important Dates to Remember:
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June 2019
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