I hope you all had a great four day weekend and four day week! We have had a relatively calm, yet busy, week here in room 405!
Things To Note:
Have a great weekend! Fingers crossed this whole "snow thing" doesn't happen...
- I/E: We started a new project about countries involving research! Students are working on finding the capital, continent and flags of nearly 60 countries! They are filling out this information in a packet and from there, will choose a country to do further research on. They will create a final project about this country through an avenue of their choice.
- ELA: This week, we had our Unit 4 ELA Assessment that covers all the topics and skills we have focused on over the last 5 weeks. Students took a comprehension, grammar and writing assessment to assess their understanding, application and knowledge of these topics/skills. As I say each time we have these unit assessments, the comprehension assessment can be rather difficult for students. With that said, do not be surprised if you see a score that may not seem consistent with your child's progress on weekly reading assessments. They are long stories to read with 30 questions to answer after, so it takes awhile to build that kind of stamina up!
- Math: This week, we are continuing to work with fractions. We learned how to change mixed numbers to improper fractions and improper fractions to mixed numbers. This came in handy when we started adding mixed numbers this week. It takes a lot of steps to do so, but with practice, we will keep getting better at this! We are learning that even when adding mixed numbers, we have to make sure the fractions have common denominators first, then add the whole numbers and add the fractions to find the final sum. If the final fraction is an improper fraction (numerator is bigger than the denominator), we have to change it to a mixed number and add it to the whole. Helping your child at home with this process will really help them be successful at this topic! We will be subtracting mixed numbers next week!
- Social Studies: We are continuing with The American Revolution and learned about the battles that happened on US territory. We learned the important role that George Washington had in making sure the Continental Army was able to be successful. Additionally, we learned about the important role that women plays during the war as well.
- Science: With Earth Day being on Monday, starting our "Human Footprint" topic was able to nicely tie in. So far in this topic, we have discussed the effects that humans have the environment. We learned about acid rain, and did an experiment that replicated the effects acid rain can have on buildings and statues. Humans contribute to acid rain with pollution and gas emissions. We will continue to dive more into this topic next week!
- October Sky Movie: As you are aware, we sent home permission slips about watching two science movies that had to do with rockets and space to connect to activities we will be doing for Science Night in the coming weeks. On Friday, we watched "October Sky," where students learned about a boy who was inspired to build a rocket after Sputnik goes to orbit in 1957.
Things To Note:
- OPEN HOUSE: Open House will be Thursday, May 9th from 6-7 pm. If you and your child are going to attend, please make sure to send back the form that went home earlier this week! It will be a fun night of hands on activities!
Have a great weekend! Fingers crossed this whole "snow thing" doesn't happen...