The News According to Greta! 5/4/14

Reading and Writing

In reading the past three weeks, we have been doing several things. One of the things we have been doing is wrapping up our historical fiction reading. To do this we had to answer questions about how the book and the Revolutionary War connect, what books we read, and how many pages in all we read. Then we added up all the Loyalists’ pages, Patriots’ pages and the Neutralists’ pages to see who won the “pages contest”. The Loyalists won this contest, even though the Patriots have been winning the weekly reading contest, that we tally up every Friday. Unfortunately, last Monday was our last day with Joan. We worked on answering “hot seat” questions, questions you answer on the spot. We had to answer according to character, and it was harder than it sounds. Luckily, Mrs. Crowther said Joan will be back soon to work with us on a whole new topic!

In writing the past three weeks, we have been mainly working on our big historical report. After taking notes, we wrote a flash daft. Now we’re working on revising. We have worked on introductions, using National Geographic, but we have really been working hard on elaborating. This has really been hard for us to do, to go into our writing and find a place to put elaboration. To make this easier, Mrs. Crowther demonstrated elaborating on a classmate’s writing, and she hung up a poster giving starting words for elaboration ( “I’m realizing……., “I wonder………, “I think this was important because…….., “This makes me think……… etc.). Ask your child what topic they’re doing! We have also been moving into writing our second draft!

Math, Number Corner, Science

In math the past three weeks we have been wrapping up Unit 4 and skipping Unit 5 to go into Unit 6. To wrap up Unit 4, we played some workplaces with our partners, we had a review day, and finally, we had our Post- Assessment test. Yes, we are actually skipping Unit 5, but we are going to come back to it after we complete Unit 6. So far in the new unit we have been solving division fraction problems, and we have learned what the Greatest Common Factor in fractions is, and how to find a fraction’s simplest form.

In number corner the past two weeks we have been observing the April calendar, and working on the April activity. This month’s calendar features cubes, and every day the number corner people have been recording the surface area and the volume of the shape. Also there is a pattern that we notice. April’s activity is called the Space Race. In this game, two teams are racing each other to Uranus. Starting at the Sun, each team picks picks a card stating how many miles to travel that day. We track this process on a record sheet.

The past three weeks we haven’t really been studying anything but we did have a NECAP practice test. Ask your child what the test included!

https://docs.google.com/a/cssu.org/file/d/0BwA37fHQc4eSd1RBRG1wRy1yTzhqZExGYkpMcXFLNzNvUmh3/edit

https://docs.google.com/a/cssu.org/file/d/0BwA37fHQc4eSaG9aM3A3WlhoQkFYQkNTNEZBMGxqS0lzMnlj/edit