Plans Week of September 26, 2015

Students trying to solve "The Locker Problem" in math.

Highlights from Last Week:
It was a pleasure to meet many parents at Monday's Open House!

Students worked on their first math workshop challenge. They partnered up and racked their brains to solve a complex real-world problem involving factors of numbers.

We enjoyed a fun trial of poetry this past week. Students used a template to write an "I Am" poem that shares their inner hopes and feelings. I was extremely impressed when they utilized the thesaurus to find some striking vocabulary words to describe themselves.

In preparation for the exceptional lunar eclipse on tonight, we learned about the earth's movements around the sun and how an eclipse occurs. The lights were out, the lamp was on, and playground balls were orbiting and casting shadows!
 
What we didn't get to:

• I completely changed the plan in Writing. Instead of generating ideas and vocabulary words, we created an "I Am" poem and learned how to find exciting words in the thesaurus.
• In Math, I decided to hold off on the place value lesson and save it for the next unit.
• We did not start Social Studies. I think we'll just focus on Science first.

This Week's Plan

Special:
Wednesday: Early Release. Teacher professional development on Science.

Reading:

• Reading Action Verbs --Students will respond in their reading journals about their independent reading using our list of reading action verbs. The goal is to increase the depth and insightfulness of students' written responses about their reading.
• Monitoring our Understanding --Students will learn how to recognize that their comprehension is fuzzy and will practice three strategies for fixing it.
• Teacher Read Aloud --I continue to read aloud from There's a Boy in the Girl's Bathroom by Louis Sachar. 
• Formal reading assessments --This week I finish up on the fluency assessment with each student. I will begin administering a more thorough reading assessment later this week, meeting with each student. This assessment takes a couple of weeks to finish on the whole class.

Writing:

• "I Am" Poems --Students finish their poems about their inner selves.
• Adding and Citing Graphics --I will teach students how to add graphics to their "I Am" poem pages and how to cite the sources for those graphics.
• Generating Ideas --We'll learn some strategies for conquering the blank page. Students will learn how to think of people, places, passions, turning points, and more and list them in a special place that they can always return to when they need an idea for writing.
• Storytelling to Start --We'll practice a strategy called, "Storytelling," where students tell a partner about an experience to help get the order of events straight before writing.

Math: 

• Square Numbers --Students learn about these special numbers and what exponents do.
• Multiplication Facts Progress Check --Students will take a multiplication facts assessment to see how they have improved in their instant fact recall.
• Unit 1 Review & Assessment --We review what we've learned in this unit in preparation for our first assessment. Study Guide Here!
• Open Response Practice --Students learn how to effectively respond to a math open response problem, showing their work clearly and concisely.

Science:
We are studying Weather and Climate. This week, we will investigate causes of weather and climate by exploring the uneven heating of the earth and convection currents.
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Homework:
Please visit the Homework Page for full details. Students don't have a new Reading Response Blog to respond to, but they must reply to the reply I posted to each of them AND reply to another student's response, all from last week.
There is also a new Homework Project this week! It's a fun one.


Thanks for Reading!
So that's the plan for the week. Please feel free to email me with any questions, comments, or feedback.