Weekly Update and Resources

This week we are continuing very focused work in each subject.  Our literacy and social studies continues to be focused on the Discovery theme.  In math we are focusing on fractions and in science we are continuing with properties of water on planet Earth.  Below is a more detailed explanation and also some resources to help with some weekly work.

Writing: Students are working on writing narrative snippets for their explorer narratives.  We are using material that comes up in our Discovery game to inspire our ideas.  This week our focus has been on using commas in our stories.  Next week we will also look at quotations and make a story map before working on our drafts.

Reading: Students are deep into their journey books.  This week they are practicing letter writing as they write a letter to me about their book so far.  We have addressed letter format including reading thoughts.

Math: We fixed incorrect problems on our variables test and then continued with our fraction work.  Students have fraction cards to play games at home and in the classroom.  This week we used manipulatives to help understand fractions and see the connection to division, percents, and decimals.  We also used manipulatives to highlight the relationship between improper fractions and mixed numbers.

Social Studies: We added more explorers to our class explorer timeline.  The list below are the explorers I want kids to focus on during passports this week and next.  We are well into our Discovery game and each colony is settling in the New World, complete with Native interactions, weather and farming, fishing, and hunting.

Science: This weeks water properties work includes anin depth look at condensation and activities to highlight the distribution of water on Earth.  We have a water assessment on Friday where students draw their own model of the Water Cycle and describe the main processes within this "cycle".  The following site has in depth information about these topics: http://water.usgs.gov/edu/watercycle.html

Word Study:
Eduplace Homophones

Compound Word List

-Ful Suffix

Explorers:
John Cabot
Giovanni da Verrazano
Jacques Cartier
Samuel de Champlain
Jacques Marquette
Louis Joliet
Henry Hudson
Francis Drake
John White - Roanoke
John Smith - Jamestown
Pilgrims
Puritans


http://mrnussbaum.com/explorersflash/

http://www.socialstudiesforkids.com/subjects/explorers.htm      (ads on this site!)