Week of October 3rd, 2016

Sharing our "I Am" poems during our Writing Celebration.

Highlights from Last Week:

Get Up and Move Day was Friday during All School Meeting time. The whole school had fun running around the campus and being active. I had particular fun making the "Squat Station," and encouraging everyone to squat. We even made a "squat wave" at one point!

On Friday, we celebrated our writing be sharing our "I Am" poems. The lights were low, chill music played in the background, and students got up to read their creative poems. It was a fun way to end the week.

Students enjoyed the Higher Order Thinking problem I gave them in Math this week. The Locker Problem. The problem made students use their knowledge of factors to figure out how many lockers out of 100 are open after a 100 students play a pattern game with them. It was fun to watch students wrestle with the concept of factors in a new way.

In Social Studies, I acted out my interpretation of the development of government to students' delight. Students learned what life might be like without governments making rules, enforcing them, and punishing those who don't follow them. We then launched our investigation into the purpose of government, tying it in with informational reading techniques.

What We Didn't Get To:

• In Writing, I still haven't been able to launch the class newsletter. Hopefully this week! I'll keep trying!

This Week's Plan


Upcoming Special Events: 

• Rosh Hashanah --Monday, October 3rd.
• Early Release --Wednesday, October 5th.
• No School, Columbus Day --Monday, October 10th.

Special Activities:

• 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.

Math:
Multiplication Basics, Factors, and Number Theory.​

• Unit 1 Review & Assessment --We finish our review of what we've learned in this unit and take our first assessment. Check out the Study Guide here.
• Open Response on Divisibility --Students will take on a problems that requires them to use their understanding of divisibility and arrays.
• Place Value and Powers of 10 –We look at how our place value system works by multiplying and dividing by 10. 
• Expanded Notation –We break down numbers by place value and write them using powers of 10.

Reading:
Launching Reading Workshop.​

• In-Class Reading Response -- We begin our first weekly in-class reading response, where I will assign students a text to read and they will respond to a prompt of their choice during Reading Workshop. This week, students will read a heartwarming story about Leo, a boy who is "slower than the rest."
• Formal reading assessments -- I will begin administering the Fountas & Pinnell reading assessment this week, meeting with individual students to assess their fluency, comprehension, and more. This assessment takes a couple of weeks to finish with the whole class.
• 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:
Launch Personal Narrative Writing.

• Making Lists to Generate Ideas --We'll learn how to make lists of experiences in our lives, such as first times, favorite things, important people, turning points, and times we realized something.
• Staying in a Point of View --When writing a personal narrative, students will need to tell the story from their perspective and avoid zooming out to an omniscient point of view. We'll learn how to maintain a consistent point of view.
• The Kimball Class Newsletter --I'll try (again!) to get our class newsletter started this week. Students will have an outlet to publish their writing for an authentic audience.

Social Studies:
Note: In Social Studies, students will read and discuss historical content, but I also intertwine instruction on informational reading techniques. Here is the content we focus on:
Inquiry Investigation of the US Government & Elections, particularly:

• The Purpose of Government --We ask, why do we need government? We'll look at the ideas of Thomas Hobbes and John Locke.
• The Role of Government --We ask, what does government do? We'll look at what it means to be a sovereign state. Students will create their own imaginary sovereign state.

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. There is a new Homework Project called, "What If...?" due Monday, October 17th.
2. Respond to Ms. Kimball on Blog #1 by Friday.
3. Read 25 minutes at home per day and keep a log in your planner.
4. There will be a math page for homework each night.

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

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