Math: On Friday we finished unit 7 (dividing decimals). We have officially learned how to use all four operations on decimals and fractions! Students will periodically be reviewing these skills by completing a fraction or decimal of the day sheet. Students will also use their knowledge of multiplying decimals and fractions in our next unit to compute volume and area formulas. Today we began our next unit on Volume by reviewing the area formula and finding the area of combined rectangles. Students will build on this knowledge to eventually find the volume of combined rectangular prisms.
Social Studies/Writer's Workshop: Last week we complete our mini-unit on North American settlements. Students learned about Roanoke, Jamestown, and Plymouth. This week we began our creative writing unit on this topic. Students will all write 1 script, 1 poem, and 1 mini-narrative about one of these colonies. As students complete these creative writing tasks they can share them with you by accessing their Google Drive account at home.
Reader' Workshop: Over these next few days we will be completing our Non-Fiction reading unit. Students have worked hard thinking carefully about non-fiction texts. Students identified the text structures of various books, articles, and magazines and also compared the text structure of texts of a similar topic. Today we finished our practice on stating the main idea and supporting that main idea with a few important details.
Monday, March 7, 2016
Monday, February 22, 2016
Friday, January 29, 2016
JFK's Student Newspaper
The first edition of the JFK Student Newspaper is out!
Click here: http://pub.lucidpress.com/thekennedymonthlyjan/ to enjoy!
Be sure to look for the article by Ciara!
Click here: http://pub.lucidpress.com/thekennedymonthlyjan/ to enjoy!
Be sure to look for the article by Ciara!
Monday, January 25, 2016
Classroom Update
Social Studies: We have finished out unit on exploration and discovered the many trips of different European explorers. Below are a few pictures from our week of presentations (Unfortunately, I forgot to take pictures for most, but the students agreed posting a few would be ok :)
Writer's Workshop: Last Friday students finished their persuasive essays! Your child can share their essay with you by logging on to their Google Docs account. We used this technology to peer edit our writing. Students learned to give helpful feedback instead of fixing the work for their partner. We have many convincing essays on animals, environmental concerns, homework, sports, and many more.
Math Workshop: We have completed more work in fraction concepts focusing on understanding word problems by drawing a visual and writing an equation. Students also worked on a collaborative math mini project on Friday. Students "acted" out a wall painting situation with colored paper to determine the solution to the problem. Groups of three created a poster to clearly show their thinking to others.
Reader's Workshop: We have begun our non-fiction reading unit to coincide our non-ficiton writing unit. Students have set a purpose for reading non-fiction text as well as looked at various non-fiction text features. We discussed how these features help us to understand the information in the text and thought about which ones we may use in our informational birds of prey text in writer's workshop.
Saturday, January 9, 2016
Classroom Update
Math
We are well on our way to completing our work with fractions. Before winter break students learned how to add and subtract both fractions and mixed numbers. We also started our unit on multiplying fractions before vacation. These past two weeks we continued working on multiplying fractions using area models and two different strategies for multiplying mixed numbers. This coming Monday we will begin the last part of our fraction work by looking at the division of fractions.
Reader's Workshop
Students have been working hard before vacation reading and preparing to meet in book clubs. All groups have had some really good conversations about the books they are reading. Many connections have also been made to our read aloud Wonder. Some groups have completed their book and other groups will be finishing next week. A final book club meeting will discuss turning points in the story and theme.
Writer's Workshop
Students are in the process of revising their persuasive essays. Students choose a topic that they feel strongly about and would like to persuade others to take action. We have begun revision with two strategies, adding evidence and unpacking or analyzing evidence. We will continue to work on other revision strategies next week.
Social Studies
Before vacation students learned about early explorations in China, Africa, and Europe. Students are now in the middle of their partner research project on an assigned explorer. Now that students have completed their research, they will create a presentation that will teach their classmates about their explorer. Students have also been learning a lot about how to research information using books and the Internet, an important skill for our upcoming Birds of Prey informational writing project. We began talking about plagiarism and why is it important to paraphrase or put informational into your own words when doing research and taking notes. Along with this we talked about the need to cite the sources that they are using to find information on their explorer. And finally we discussed how to find reputable Internet sources and how to effectively Google search.
We are well on our way to completing our work with fractions. Before winter break students learned how to add and subtract both fractions and mixed numbers. We also started our unit on multiplying fractions before vacation. These past two weeks we continued working on multiplying fractions using area models and two different strategies for multiplying mixed numbers. This coming Monday we will begin the last part of our fraction work by looking at the division of fractions.
Reader's Workshop
Students have been working hard before vacation reading and preparing to meet in book clubs. All groups have had some really good conversations about the books they are reading. Many connections have also been made to our read aloud Wonder. Some groups have completed their book and other groups will be finishing next week. A final book club meeting will discuss turning points in the story and theme.
Writer's Workshop
Students are in the process of revising their persuasive essays. Students choose a topic that they feel strongly about and would like to persuade others to take action. We have begun revision with two strategies, adding evidence and unpacking or analyzing evidence. We will continue to work on other revision strategies next week.
Social Studies
Before vacation students learned about early explorations in China, Africa, and Europe. Students are now in the middle of their partner research project on an assigned explorer. Now that students have completed their research, they will create a presentation that will teach their classmates about their explorer. Students have also been learning a lot about how to research information using books and the Internet, an important skill for our upcoming Birds of Prey informational writing project. We began talking about plagiarism and why is it important to paraphrase or put informational into your own words when doing research and taking notes. Along with this we talked about the need to cite the sources that they are using to find information on their explorer. And finally we discussed how to find reputable Internet sources and how to effectively Google search.
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