Tuesday In and About: Solar Ovens | Wednesday ART | Thursday ELC Buddies / PE? | Friday ART |
2/20--No School, President's Day
2/28--Out and About to Fernhill--I will need volunteers for this day, please let me know if you can help!! (O&A is contingent upon the waters receding.)
2/28 -- Map check
Project
I enjoyed seeing the Merlins acknowledge each other for witnessing Random Acts of Kindness and I hope this is something the class will continue to strive for. We spent some time writing notes to those who help make the school wonderful and hid a few Love Rocks around town. And, our Thursday Level 1 buddy activity was really great! Merlins helped make paper hands that raise money for children in poverty, decorate cookies to deliver to our public servants in town and decorate Love Rocks.
We did get a little of our space unit in there too. We took advantage of the sun being out on Monday and drew our shadow during different times of the day (oh, and we wrote sweet messages with sidewalk chalk too.) We'll rely on this experience a later this next week.
Ask what can you do to keep kindness a year around expectation?
Listen to your child explain what happened with our shadows throughout the day and where the sun was while we drew our shadows.
Extend the learning by figuring out how a sun dial works.
Literacy
Our reading focus this week was paying attention to how we make inferences while we read. What can you infer or know without being directly told? At times, we found it tricky to separate making an inference from making a prediction, but in the end we got the hang of it. We continue to write our fantasies, this week we paid special attention to showing not telling and ways to reveal character. For instance, we can get to know a character through a letter they write or their reaction to another character.
Ask what's an example of an inference you made this week?
Listen to your child explain the difference between showing not telling.
Extend the learning by discussing inferences you make throughout your day.
6th Grade Math
We sure have found this latest block to be quite challenging. There are a lot of terms to remember, perimeter, area, surface area and volume. And, all of the problems require multiple steps to the get to the answer. There's figuring out which type of measurement is needed, examining the picture or sentences to get dimensions and then there is the calculating it all correctly with labeling! Kids should have finished the test by now and we'll do test corrections and such in the upcoming week.
Ask, how can you tell area from volume?
Listen to your child explain the difference between surface area and area.
Extend the learning by showing how these measurements are used in everyday life.
5th Grade Math-
Last week, mathematicians worked hard to understand the reasoning and justification of products of two fractions. Our work also gave students an opportunity to understand what it means and what happens when a we multiply a fraction. This week, we will summarize our work to connect it with a formula for multiplying fractions. This will support our work to learn multiplication of finite decimals. Beginning Wednesday, we will return to division of a whole number by a fraction and a fraction be a whole number, emphasizing the reasoning behind the "short cut." Finally, we'll end the week with the formula for division with a fraction.
In order to provide more support for questions around homework as well as make the connection between our homework and classwork more explicit, I have altered the organization and expectations a little. The Problems of the Week is broken into each night's work based on the work we would have done in class. There are some review problems at the beginning. Mathematicians are expected to complete the night's problems (about 4) related to the work of that day. The next day, we'll begin by going over the problems and answering any questions. 5th graders will still have the option of completing the night's homework as a done-do in class if they have time. I'll collect homework on Friday. Please let me know if you have any questions about this small change.
ASK your mathematician to draw a picture to show 4/5 of 5/7 and solve using the formula.
LISTEN to your mathematician explain the formula for multiplying fractions and how it connects to the reasoning steps and definition.
EXTEND the learning by looking at how division and multiplication with fractions happens in the real world.