ELA - In ELA students have been learning about commas and how they are used to show pause when writing addresses, dates, and listing items in a series. They have been doing so well with this! We are also continuing our historical fiction unit with a focus on how African Americans have been affected throughout history. We are covering many eras! So far students have covered slavery, starting in 1619 and working our way to the Civil War. As we head into February students will be focusing on more current events like segregation, civil rights, and current issues that are still faced today. We have been pairing our reading with nonfiction sources to verify that the information in our historical fiction texts are accurate. Students will begin their final project of creating their own historical fiction stories and working on research skills.
Literature - Unit #2: We started our Historical Fiction unit in December and will continue working on it through January and February. Students have studied the Irish Potato Famine, The Dust Bowl, and The Great Depression, so far in this unit. Students will continue to read Historical Fiction novels of their choice and fill out HF graphic organizers as they complete a novel. It is their responsibility to grab a new graphic organizer when they start a new book. Students are given some class time to read, but they should be reading at home, on a daily basis, and filling in their daily reading log, which is glued in their Literature notebook. Students will be starting a project at the end of January and into February analyzing the great photography of Dorothea Lang. Her amazing photographs, capturing the reality of American hardship during The Dust Bowl and The Great Depression is incredible. Students will be spending a few weeks analyzing several of her photographs and creating a slideshow of their observations and perspectives of those times.
Social Studies - Each student became a member of one of the five social classes within the social pyramid in Ancient Egypt. I of course was the pharaoh! Along with two or three group members, they completed a matrix highlighting major characteristics dealing with their assigned class. They then used this information to answer a series of questions that was later used to aid them in their script writing. Each student chose a role within the group such as the director, historian, host, or special effects designer. Each role came with different responsibilities that the student had to take on, but all students were responsible for helping to write the skit as well as for performing in it. Students were scored based on the accuracy of the information within their skit and whether or not they had all of the necessary pieces according to the station directions.
Science - We are finishing out Design a Lift/Engineering Design group projects. We are starting a mini unit on Weather and Climate with an emphasis on Weather. We will be building mini weather stations from household products. Please make sure that your child wears warm clothing as we will go outside for 5-10 minutes each day to record the weather. We will be measuring wind speed and direction, temperature, air pressure, sky conditions, rain/snow accumulation, and then comparing them to those of the National Weather Station. We will also be learning about extreme weather related to changes in air pressure.
Math - We started Unit 4: Division of Fractions in January when we returned. This included some refresher work on adding, subtracting (common denominators) and multiplying fractions. Moving smoothly through the unit we took our Mid Unit Assessment on January 21st. We will wrap up the unit before the February break and begin Unit 5: Arithmetic in Base Ten. Scores from our Winter NWEA testing will be shared as soon as they are available. Homework - the opportunity to think about what was taught during the daily lesson and determine their level of understanding is still a standard expectation for my class. Google Classroom offers a video to support their learning. I begin EACH class with an inquiry to address any misconceptions or concerns they may have had.
