Happy Friday all! Well, it was nice to have March come in quietly with lots of sunshine and great weather! Don't forget to turn your clocks ahead Saturday night/Sunday morning, our days start staying brighter next week!! In Math, we have been very busy working with multiplication of fractions. Students have the computation down pretty solid, the challenge for them are the models when answering word problems. The model we draw for 1/2 of 6 (1/2 x 6) is different from the model that we draw for 6 groups of 1/2 (6 x 1/2) - see the example below: We will be continuing to work on word problems with fractions to build the conceptual understanding of the differences shown in this example and others! They are doing a great job converting mixed numbers to improper and improper to mixed which has really helped as they multiply mixed numbers like 4 1/2 x 2 3/4! Keep up the great work! Next week we will move into dividing whole numbers by unit fractions and unit fractions by whole numbers!
In Reading this week we kicked off March Madness. During this month we are reading a picture book a day (sometimes two!) from diverse authors and cultures. Be sure to ask your child about the books pictured in our photo gallery! We learned about Nelson Mandela, the children marching in Alabama, kite flying contests in Pakistan, a recycled orchestra in Paraguay as well as a book about the good that is present in all communities. Students have booklets where they are recording the titles, authors, and story elements for each book. It's great to see their amazement as they learn about traditions and activities in other cultures, as well as learn more about the history of change in our country. Students are also working on a final project for their literature discussion groups for The War That Saved My Life. They are working with their partner or small groups to create a game board for this book. They are creating questions and answers about the many events and characters to be used as part of their game. They are also creating the game board itself along with the object of the game and rules. These will be worked on in school and some work will be done at home. All game boards need to be done by Friday, March 13th, at which time students will swap off their games and play one from another group. Lots of great teamwork and creativity going on! In writing, we are continuing our work on our opinion writing! Students have been doing a great job gathering evidence both for and against their argument. We are organizing our thoughts and beginning our drafts. Next week we will focus on our transitions as well as how we can use quotes from experts to support our arguments. Looking forward to more great work from everyone! Lots of lively discussions about zoos, recess, testing and school uniforms! In Science, we are looking at the Earth's 4 systems: Atmosphere, Biosphere, Hydrosphere and Geosphere. Students did a nice job with their diagrams of the water cycle as we dug deeper into our hydrosphere. Lots of connections made to our discussions last week about water on Earth and how 97.5% of our water is salt water! We took a deeper look at our Geosphere by building models of the 3 types of rocks: Igneous, Sedimentary and Metamorphic. Be sure to ask your child how igneous rocks are formed, or perhaps ask them to explain the difference between a sedimentary rock and a metamorphic rock. Great discussions and connections continue to be made as we went back to our work on how the Earth's landscape can change through fast and slow processes. How does erosion help create sedimentary rocks? Good stuff!! We had a lot of fun at Literacy Night last night! Our classroom read The Giving Tree and other poems by Shel Silverstein (one of my favorites). Ms. Pagnani read a fun poem about band aids and we created little people to see if we could count the number of bandaids in the poem! Next week will continue digging in. We are going to go through the practice tutorial for the MCAS, just to remind students and hopefully put them at ease that the tools remain the same as last year! We have lots to accomplish, but I have been proud of their focus this past week. They are a chatty crew overall, but when focused - wow!! Amazing results! Thank you for all of the support from home! Enjoy the weekend!! Maura
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March 2020
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