Week of June 5, 2017

Students conducting an interview for their American Revolution news reports.

​Highlights from Last Week:

• Students created these awesome news reports about the causes of the American Revolution. In small groups, they planned and filmed news reports about the French and Indian War, the Stamp Act, the Townshend Acts, the Boston Tea Party, the Boston Massacre, and the Intolerable Acts. I will try to post their reports online for your viewing pleasure.
• We wrapped up our last unit in math.
• Students learned how to incorporate counterarguments and rebuttals into an opinion essay.
• Nurse Fedor and Mr. Carnes wrapped up the last lesson of puberty.

What We Didn't Get To:

• We didn't make as much progress as I had planned in writing. We still need to craft introductions and conclusions.

This Week's Plan

Special Activities:

• Global Citizenship Project Shares --Students turn in their projects and give presentations to the class about their organization, its cause, and the work students have done to promote it.
  
• Science Testing Trial --Many schools in the state are running a trial of the future Science MCAS. Ours will be Tuesday, June 6th. It's only a 45 minute session and it does not count toward students' grades.

Upcoming Special Events: ​​​​​

• Early Release --Wednesday, June 7th.
• Grade 5 Open House --Wednesday, June 7th at 6:00pm.
• Visit to Middle School --Thursday, June 8th.
• Hale Reservation Field Trip --Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, June 13th - 15th.
• Grade 5 Promotion Ceremony --Tuesday, June 20th.
• Last Day of School -Wednesday, June 21st.

Math:
Correct Assessments. End of Year Review

• We'll correct our Unit 9 Math Assessments as a class.
• We'll briefly review major concepts we covered this year in math in preparation for our End of Year Math Assessment.

Reading:
Character Changes and Theme

• Students write their last open response essay describing how the main character in their story changed over time and how that relates to the theme.
  

Writing:
Finish Opinion Writing. Word Scales.

• We finish our essays about homework. This week we will work on building counter arguments, constructing strong introductions and conclusions, using appropriate transition words, and commas.
• Students are creating "word scales" to help learn new vocabulary. They'll be searching through the online dictionary and thesaurus to find words along a scale of two opposites, such as "hot/cold," and "love/hate."

Social Studies:
American Revolution. Vocabulary building.

• Through readings, videos, and storytelling, we'll learn about the important battles of the American Revolutionary War.
• As we study the American Revolution, students confront many challenging vocabulary words, such as oppositional, controversy, and discontent. We will record new words and use them through discussion and activities.

Science:
Science Testing Trial. See above.

Homework:
Please check the Homework page for more details.

1. Students turn in their Global Citizenship projects on Monday.
2. There is no new blog this week.
3. Read 25 minutes at home per day and log the title, author, and time in the planner.
4. There may be some math review homework.

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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.​​​​​