Math and Science
Welcome back! I hope you all had a fantastic February break! This week in math, students will be learning to write and solve equations. Beginning with addition and subtraction, students will learn how to read a word problem, write a matching equation using a variable, and solve the equation. To do all of this, we will be learning to use inverse operations to isolate the variables and "undo" the math on both sides of the equal sign. There will be a short quiz on Wednesday covering lessons 1, 2, and 3 of chapter 7. For the next 2 weeks students will be participating in a science lab involving eggs. Eggs are a perfect, hands-on way to explore a single cell. In partners, students will receive an egg and observe how that egg changes when placed in different liquids. Each day students will measure and record their findings on a lab recording sheet. In the end, students will draw conclusions about the cell membrane, create a graph of egg sizes, and analyze their original hypotheses. This should be a lot of fun! English Language Arts, Reading and History We'll be reviewing the parts of a story with "Nothing Ever Happens on 90th Street) and practicing making conclusions and inferencing in reading. Vocabulary is due on Thursday when we will start an open response test in class that can be finished as homework. Our next writing assignment will be based on how this story is written. Students will be writing about their own neighborhoods. Details to follow on Tuesday. Grammar continues reviewing the principal parts of verbs and we venture into irregular verbs. We finish discussing the Trojan War with some follow up questions about the Iliad, Homer and a Greek map.
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English Language Arts, Reading and History
Learning about poetry and the poets of the Harlem Renaissance will be our main focus this week. We continue reviewing literary elements: metaphor, simile, personification, hyperbole, onomatapeoia, alliteration, assonance, consonance, puns and allusions . The poetry packet should be completely done in class but some students will bring the packet home on Thursday to finish the work before it is turned in on Friday. For grammar, we continue trying to understand the perfect and progressive tenses. I've got an assignment due on Tuesday to see how things are going. In History, I will be glad to begin the idea of Greek mythology and discuss the Iliad and the Odyssey. Students will be receiving their My Opinions 5 paragraph essay for their writing folders and hopefully , corrected papers for binders on Friday. Reading slips are due on Wednesday. A double reading slip will be due on the Wednesday after vacation. We continue reading The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. We just finished the iconic graveyard scene. Math
This week in math we will be wrapping up chapter 6. Students will learn about the distributive property and how it can help break apart numbers to solve expressions more easily. They will also take their algebraic knowledge one step further and begin simplifying expressions by combining like terms. Review activities will be on Thursday and Friday, and their math test will be Monday, 2/12. This test will cover chapter 6 skills and vocabulary. Students will take their mid-year STAR math test on Wednesday. This computer based assessment will help me to analyze how well and how much students have learned so far this year, and plan our next steps. Science Science projects are due Friday. A copy of the requirements can be found here. Students will continue to learn about the body's systems this week, and how our systems work together. Students should know the levels of organization for the human body (cell, tissues, organs, organ systems, organisms) and be able to share a bit of information about each level. English Language Arts, Reading and History We're practicing reading strategies with a piece about the Brooklyn Bridge, but nothing from the Treasures books like vocabulary. We worked on Theme vs. Main idea today. We're having a focus on grammar this week with some review of the 3 main verb tenses (present, past and future) with the Perfect and Progressive thrown in for fun. For this information, I find the traditional conjugation format is the best for learning the structure of the verb. Old School, I know, but I find it really helps to organize it in your head when you see the whole verb conjugated. We continue Massachusetts Book Award reading groups for fluency. Most students did improve their fluency assessment with the DIBELS test I administered last week. I am hoping to return the "My Opinions" paper by Friday to writing folders. The essays have shown some interesting thoughts and well made arguments. For History we've begun looking at how the time is arranged with the Illustrated Time Line due tomorrow. By the end of the week, I'd like to be discussing Greek mythology. Finally, we are approaching the inciting incident in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. I've heard mostly positive comments about this book, despite it's challenging vocabulary and work structure and, or course, some of the hard history of pre-Civil War Missouri. But I think it's an important book dealing with universal themes of good vs. evil, growing up and what was life like in then olden days. I hope you've been having some lively discussions at the dinner table! |