Week of May 16, 2016

Students intrigued by art at the Museum of Fine Arts.

Highlights from Last Week:
We had a packed week last week. Students completed the Math MCAS as well as the DARE program. I think students enjoyed DARE significantly more than MCAS!

Our field trip to the Museum of Fine Arts was enlightening. We learned about art in the Americas from the knowledgeable tour guides, then we browsed  the rest of the museum to watch how the features of art changed over time.
On Friday, we enjoyed special guest author, Michael Tougias, who wrote Our Finest Hours, now a Disney film. Mr. Tougias presented to 3rd and 5th graders about the real life event he researched and how writing historical nonfiction can be exhilarating.

In Science last week, we learned about how plants grow and compared our understanding to our attempts to germinate seeds. We then studied food webs and ecosystems. Students read about a particular ecosystem and are working in partnerships to draw a food web that shows how energy is transferred from the sun to producers to consumers then to decomposers.

What we didn't get to:

• Writing… We didn’t get to any of the Writing grammar lessons I had planned.

This Week's Plan
 
Special:

• Book Fair: Tuesday – Thursday this week. Our class previews the book fair on Tuesday morning.
• Early release Wednesday
• District Band Festival: Wednesday from 6:30-8:00pm
• Science MCAS Session 1: Thursday
• Science MCAS Session 2: Friday

 
 

Math: 
Now that MCAS is over, we are going to go back and cover some of the concepts we rushed through.

• Polygon Properties: We will sort polygons and play some games to practice classifying polygons by their properties.
• Measurement Conversions: Metric system and US standard system. We’ll see how this is used in the real world.
  
  

Writing:  
Grammar and Language Skills

• Conjunctions and Interjections
• Verb Tenses
  
  

Reading:
Reflections. Connect to Grammar.

• Blog Reflections: Students will look back at their early blog responses and the prompt to assess how well they did. They will compare their early responses to their recent responses and look for progress.
• Grammar Hunt: Students will look for conjunctions and interjections in their independent reading.

 
Social Studies:
We take a break from Social Studies to focus on Science. We will pick up with Social Studies again after the Science MCAS is over.
 
 
Science:
MCAS Preparation.

• Food Webs –We will learn how organisms are related to one another by what they eat in their ecosystems. We’ll learn about producers, primary and secondary consumers, decomposers, and more.
• MCAS “Science Fair”: To help prepare for the Science MCAS this week, students work through a review packet and research topics they don’t know. Students can also suggest experiments to conduct to prove important concepts.

 
Homework:
Please visit the Homework Page for more details.

• Homework Project: Global Citizenship Final Project.
• Reading: 25 minutes of daily independent reading is expected. Students should log it in their Planners. 
• Reading Response Blog: Students must reply to me and another student by Friday on Blog #17.

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