Happy President's Day! Enjoy the day off!
Class Updates:
Social Studies: Students wrapped up Ancient Rome this week and learned about the collapse of the Roman Empire. Students will have an assessment on Tuesday. On Wednesday, we will be doing a massive review going all the way back to Greece and reviewing materials about Athens, Sparta, Alexander the Great, the Roman Republic, and the Roman Empire. On Thursday and Friday of next week, students will be working on their performance task to demonstrate their mastery of the Classical Civilizations unit.
Science: This week in science students have figured out that organisms have adaptations for survival. Ask them about the butterflies in our classroom. We ended the week researching different biomes in an effort to figure out if our wrinkled fingers are an adaptation. Here's an idea for a great at home science experiment: Students can do the dishes! First they should try to pick up wet dishes in the sink with dry hands. Then when their fingers get wrinkled/prune-like from doing the dishes, they can try picking up wet dishes again. Do their fingers have better grip when they are wrinkled?
Literacy: We presented most of the Historical Fiction presentations this week. Your students have learned some great technology skills this year! Students continue learning about how and why ordinary people have worked so hard to protect and defend human rights in America. They will be reading about heroes like Mother Jones, and her work as an activist for workers' rights.
English: We're about halfway through The Giver right now and students are coming to class ASKING to read (a teacher's dream)! We've been discussing how wonderfully the author Lois Lowry builds suspense in her writing. Ask your student which assignment Jonas receives in the book and why there is so much suspense around it. Next week we will dig deeper with select reading skills, including: allusion, hooks and cliffhangers, similes, metaphors, and personification.
*Note: there is NO February IRP due this month! Students may begin reading their independent reading books for their March IRP if they want to get a head start! I will be taking classes to the library on Friday, February 22nd.
*Note: there is NO February IRP due this month! Students may begin reading their independent reading books for their March IRP if they want to get a head start! I will be taking classes to the library on Friday, February 22nd.
Math: Last Friday we finished surface area and volume, overall students did very well on this unit! Nice work. We are going to start scale next week, students will learn about enlargement and reductions and how scale relates back to our proportions unit.
