Week of October 17, 2016

Earlier this week, Thomas8 shared about his new gecko. He inspired Thomas3 to paint this amazing picture.

Highlights from Last Week:
Students learned about the roles of government in Social Studies this week. They especially enjoyed creating their own countries, thinking about what kind of government they would set up and what protects and services it would provide for their imaginary people.

We're inching closer to publishing a class newsletter. Students selected segments of the newsletter that they would work on. Next step --research and write!

In Math this week we studied how our place value system is built on powers of ten. Students used exponential notation to represent numbers and learned how scientists use powers of ten to work with large distances (like comparing planets) and counting large quantities (like blood cells in the body).

In Writing, students are working on their personal narratives. We learned how to use dialogue and how to punctuate it correctly. Using actual spoken words of our characters makes our stories come to life from our personal points of view.


What We Didn't Get To:

• In Social Studies, we didn't get to Forms of Government.

This Week's Plan


Upcoming Special Events: ​

• Parent Teacher Conferences --Weeks of October 17th & 24th
• Vision Screening with the nurse--Monday, October 17th
• Early Release --Wednesday, October 19th
• Special All School Meeting --Special guest Ooch presents "Super Power: Overcoming Bullying"
• Early Release --Wednesday, October 26th

Special Activities:

• Homework Project Share --We'll be sharing some of our stories, artwork, and trailers from our "What If" homework projects.
  
• DARE Class --Students learn decision-making skills and how to resist unwanted pressure with Office Smith for 10 weeks of 40-minute lessons on Wednesday mornings.
• The Kimball Class Newsletter --Students will be tackling their first segments for our newsletter, planning and collaborating together to meet the Friday deadline.

Math:
Place Value, Estimation, Multiplication, and Division.

• Estimating Products --We'll combine our rounding skills with our extended multiplication facts knowledge to estimate answers to multiplication problems.
• Partial Products Multiplication --We'll apply our extended multiplication facts to multi-digit multiplication. The "partial products method" is simply a way of breaking down numbers into their place values when multiplying. It helps students with number sense, estimation, and division.
• Standard Multiplication Algorithm --Students will learn to multiply multi-digit numbers using the standard US algorithm.
• Division through Multiplication --Students will "build a quotient" by using multiplication.

Reading:
Close Reading.

• Explicit versus Implicit Meaning --We will read a variety of texts this week and learn to recognize what a text explicitly says and what we can infer.
• In-Class Reading Response --Students will correspond with a classmate on the in-class reading response blog. I will post a new one about explicit versus implicit later this week.
• Formal reading assessments -- I will be finishing up formal reading assessments this week -finally! 
• Teacher Read Aloud --We're reading There's a Boy in the Girls' Bathroom by Louis Sachar. An entertaining story about a boy who hates school, hates his peers, and hates himself, but turns his life around with the help of a committed school counselor and personal resolve.

Writing:
Personal Narrative Writing.

• Writing in a Step-by-Step way --We will learn how to switch from summarizing to storytelling, and how to zoom in to the important moments.
• Flash Drafting --Students will practice drafting in a fast and furious way in order to get their ideas written down.
• Taking Stock and Setting Goals --Students will reread their on-demand narratives and their flash-drafts and think about how they measure up to our writing rubric. They will set goals for themselves.

Social Studies:
Inquiry Investigation of the US Government & Elections, particularly:

• Forms of Government --We compare and contrast different forms of government, such as monarchy, democracy, dictatorship, etc.
• Limits on Government --We will look at how countries keep governments from getting too powerful.

Here are the Informational Reading Strategies we will focus on:

• Navigating the Features of Informational Text --Students will learn how to navigate an informational text filled with a variety of resources, such as timelines, quotes, dates, pictures, headings, and more.
• Determining What's Important --We learn some techniques for identifying main ideas, such as skimming and asking questions.

Homework:
Please check the Homework page for more details. 

1. Students will need to reply to me on the At-Home Reading Response Blog #2 by Friday.
2. Read 25 minutes at home per day and log the title, author, and time in the planner.
3. There will be a math page for homework each night.
4. Students will need to complete their segment for the class newsletter by Friday.

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