Thank you for all those who ordered from Scholastic this month; our class has earned many points to use to buy new books. I will place the order on Monday afternoon after students help me choose which books to get with our points. I know they are excited for some new titles!
Math Workshop: We have completed Topic 2 adding and subtracting decimals this Friday. Students have been using their study guide to study for Monday's assessment. In this unit students not only learned the standard algorithm to add and subtract decimals but they also developed their mental math skills by using rounding and compatible numbers to estimate sums and differences. They also used their mental math skills to check to see if their sum or difference was reasonable. When adding and subtracting students used the acronym ESSC: Estimate, Setup, Solve, Check to help them calculate with precision and accuracy, one of the 8 mathematical practices (aka Math Habits). Students developed their own acronym to remember these steps.
Reader's Workshop: We have completed our unit on narrative story elements this week. After analyzing a charterer's thoughts, actions, and feelings students were able to identify the traits that describes that character. Next students learned about the different types of conflict in a narrative story. In particularly we focused on character vs. self conflict. Often times this self conflict is "tough" a decision that the character must make, like Ben's decision about pulling Truman's chair in "How Bad Could It Be" from our Storyworks magazine. Then we learned how to develop a theme statement by identifying a theme topic and recalling evidence supporting the topic from the story, to ultimately develop a statement about the author's message. We brought the entire unit of investigating story elements together by learning to write summaries about the books we read. The key to this is choosing which ideas and events are most important. Next week we will begin our first read-aloud of the year: Wonder by RJ Palacio.
Writer's Workshop: These past two weeks in writer's workshop students worked on developing their narrative story idea. We first talked about the message they want to send their readers by asking themselves, "what is my story really about?" Then we mapped out our story ideas using a story mountain map just as we have learned to map out a story in reader's workshop. After drafting students began revision by identifying the important parts in their story and elaborating on them by adding in sensory details, thought shots, and small actions to help their reader see the importance of their story. This week we will continue to work on a variety of revision strategies.
Social Studies: Students have completed their guided research on the Maya and used two technology applications to organize their knowledge of the Maya. First students used Google Docs to create a three column vocabulary chart with important words from their Maya study. This will also help students study for their upcoming test. And second students used a word cloud application to share main ideas about the Maya. On Thursday we began to study the Aztec using the same process as we did the for the Maya. Students are also working on note-taking and identifying important ideas in non-fiction text. We will continue our study this week with the Aztec and our final civilization the Inca.
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