Week of April 3, 2017

Pine Hill at the DS District Choral Concert

Highlights from Last Week:

It was a very musical week for students! They performed at the district choral concert on Wednesday night and then again for Sherborn seniors from the Council on Aging. Both performances went swimmingly!

We wrapped up our unit on Colonial America. Students shared their journal entries and profiles, which helped them take a closer look at daily life in Colonial America.

We also wrapped up our unit on fraction multiplication and division in math. Students took the assessment on Friday. We'll grade them on Monday to see how students did.

On Friday, we dipped our toes back into Science, watching some of the Planet Earth series to explore animals and what and how they eat. We'll dive in more this week to study the intricate relationships between animals, plants, and more.


What We Didn't Get To:

• In Writing, we only got to start studying conclusions. We'll finish it up this week.
• We didn't get an opportunity to make progress on our Global Citizenship projects this week.
• In Science, we didn't get too far in our launch.

This Week's Plan

ELA MCAS
Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday

Students should bring a healthy snack and an independent reading book. There are three session, one on each day starting in the morning. The test creators expects students to take 70 minutes to complete each session, but more realistically, they will likely take 2 hours to complete each session. However, students who need more time can have it.

This version of MCAS has more PARCC-like elements on it. This means that multiple choice questions will have 2 parts, a comprehension question and an evidence question. The open responses are also a little more complex and require students to read and analyze the texts more closely. They may have to rewrite a story from a different character's point of view, compare and contrast two different texts, explain an author's crafts, describe a character's traits, or compose an evidence-based essay. We've practiced most of these types of responses in class, so hopefully students will feel prepared!

Upcoming Special Events: ​​​​

• DS Middle School Visits Pine Hill --Monday, April 3rd from 1:30-2:30pm.
• Talent Show Set Design Work --Tuesday, April 4th from 3-5pm.
• Grade 5 ELA MCAS --Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, April 5th-7th.
• Talent Show Dress Rehearsals --Tuesday and Wednesday, April 11-12 from 3:00-5:00pm.
• Talent Show --Thursday, April 13th from 6:00-9:00pm.

Special Activities:

• Citizenship Project -Students will select an organization and cause to support. We will discuss ways to support the cause/organization and take steps to action.

Math:
Polygons.

• Assessment --Some students need to finish. We'll correct it as a class.
• What are polygons? --We'll learn about 2-dimensional figures and what special attributes they can have.
• Classifying polygons --We'll learn how to classify polygons into a hierarchy based on their properties.

Reading:
Book Groups and Informational Reading.

• Book Groups & Literary Analysis --We continue our discussions and students work on writing summaries, asking questions, and identifying important information.

Writing:
Informational Writing.​​

• Conclusions --We'll learn how to write summarizing conclusions that help readers think back on all that was covered.
• Revising and Editing --We'll look at some revising techniques for informational writers. I'll also meet with small groups of students to tailor punctuation and spelling instruction to their needs.
• Citing Sources --I'll show students how to cite their sources in a bibliography.
• Publishing --Students will assess themselves against the informational writing rubric and put the finishing touches on their informational writing project. 

Social Studies:
We've switched to Science.

Science:
Begin Plants, Animals, and Ecosystems.

• 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.

Homework:
Please check the Homework page for more details.

1. Students continue working on their "Invention Convention" homework project. It is due Tuesday, April 11th. 
2. Students will get assigned a partner to respond to on the Reading Response Blog #9.
3. Read 25 minutes at home per day and log the title, author, and time in the planner.
4. There will be a math page for homework each night.

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