Plans Week of April 27, 2015

Welcome back from the April break!

Highlights from Last Week:

The week before the break, Ms. Faucon completed week 1 of 2 for her take-over. She did a fantastic job! She will complete her take-over this week and continue teaching select units and lessons the rest of the year.

On the Monday before the break, students learned about puberty. They handled this often awkward subject with immense maturity.  

On Thursday, students learned about Simple Machines through a cool presentation by Henry Massar, former Bigelow school science teacher. Students had some hands on action with hammers, see-saws, clippers, and other tools that make work easier.

Friday presented an interesting challenge. Since the lights were to be replaced over the break, we had to move everything our from under them (desks, chairs, etc!) and cover all of our stuff in plastic tarps. Students united through teamwork to make this unpleasant task easy and painless.

Here is the general plan for the week:

Special:
Bigelow principal Todd Harrison meets with students on Monday, April 27th to share about middle school and take questions from 5th graders.

Reading: 

• This week we begin guided reading book groups. Students will be reading a book that has survival and resilience as a theme.
• We will also learn some reading strategies to improve our inferring skills.

Writing:

• We continue our Memoir writing. Students will focus on a theme or big idea for their memoir and write with detail and depth. Students will also study published memoirs and look for ways to structure their own writing.

Math: 

• This week in math, we review area and how to use unit squares as well as the dimensions of a 2D rectangular shape to find the area. 
• We begin our study of Volume by investigating how many unit cubes can fit into different 3-D spaces.
  
• Students will learn how to use the formula for finding volume (length x width x height).
• We will also find the volume of combined rectangular prisms.

Social Studies:

• We continue learning about The American Revolution. Students will read, watch videos, create skits, and write journal entries to study this epic event. We learn about the Intolerable Acts as the final cause of the American Revolution. Then we learn about the first few battles. This week, we'll learn about Lexington and Concord and Bunker Hill.

Science:

• We are studying Simple Machines. Students will investigate uses for things like: a wedge, a lever, an inclined plane, a screw, a wheel & axel, and a pulley. We will also look at force, effort, and work.
  

Thanks for reading! As always, please contact me with any questions, comments, or feedback.

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