Math
Can you believe that we are already through the first month of school?! Time is flying by, and we keep moving along with it. This week we will begin working on chapter 3 in math. This chapter is all about decimals! Students who may have struggled with decimals in chapter 2 will continue to get more opportunities to work with them another time around. Again, this entire chapter is review from grades 4 and 5, so the pace will be steady. This week, students will review adding and subtracting with decimals (line those decimals up!), estimating quotients, multiplying decimals and whole numbers, and multiplying decimals by decimals. As always, a pretest will be done at the start of the chapter to determine who remembers what from 5th grade, and who might need more assistance throughout the chapter. Students generally find this chapter to be an easy one, though tedious at times. Science In science we will continue to learn about space! Our main focus for lesson 2 will be the phases of our moon. Students will do a brief lab and watch a video on Monday. The remainder of the week will be spent reading about the moon and drawing its phases. Students should be sure to practice their vocabulary flashcards at home, even when this isn't officially assigned as homework. Flashcards were made during class last week. English Language Arts, Reading and History Writing: We will begin our extensive writing project in class on What You Don't Know About Me. This will be done in class beginning with brainstorming and ending with a final copy done in Google Classroom. We are also writing rough drafts for letters to our pen pals in Haifa, Israel. Grammar: Students will continue to review Subjects and Predicates Reading: Study Sync this week has us practicing a tiny bit of figurative language and close reading. Real Study Sync will begin next week with assignments. Students can access Study Sync at any time and will be very useful when students need to miss class. We continue reading the Massachusetts Book Award books for reading fluency and collaborative discussion and we are reading The Lightning Thief. History: Students will be receiving a FlashFacts sheet of important information about Ancient Mesopotamia, Israel and Phoenicia. Flashcards for the quiz are due on Friday and the quiz is next Tuesday. Math- TEST FRIDAY
Last week we took a quiz on chapter 2 and overall had great results! Both homerooms had an average score of 86%. Well done! Those skills will continue to be at play this week as we wrap up chapter 2. Monday- Wednesday, students will be calculating the percent of a number. These numbers can be less than 1, greater than 100, or anything in between. Thursday will be spent reviewing for the test. We will do a practice test in class, as well as completing another practice test as homework. The homework practice test and the actual test are "sister" tests, so it is extra important that students complete this assignment. An opportunity for extra credit will also be available Wednesday through Monday. Students can complete an online test (directions here!), submit proof of completion to me (note, screenshot, remind message, print out, email), and receive 5 points added to Friday's test score. Vocabulary (rational number, proportion, percent, percent proportion, least common denominator) will also be tested, so students should be sure to review these at home. Science- QUIZ WEDNESDAY Students will take their first Science quiz this Wednesday. Material covered will only be chapter 1, lesson 1. This chapter focuses on why seasons exist, rotation, and revolution. The format for this quiz will be online, with t/f, multiple choice, matching, and 2 short answer questions. Students should study their lesson outlines and study guide packet, as well as their vocabulary (rotation, revolution, orbit, rotation axis, equator, equinox, and solstice.) English Language Arts, Reading and History Writing: We have officially begun our pen pal letters to a Sixth grade class in Kiriyat Motzkin, Israel which is a section of Haifa. My college roommate teaches English to Sixth graders and it is really exciting that we get to be part of their learning experience! Grammar: We review subjects and predicates Reading : Students seem to be enjoying our initial run at at Study Sync. This week's lessons are on Collaborative Discussions, Independent Responses, Textual Evidence and Figurative language. We are also continuing our Massachusetts Book Award book groups and The Lightning Thief. History We have been preparing a group/peer teaching unit on the ancient civilizations of the Middle East: the Heberews, the Phoenicians and the Mesopotamians. This has been an example of learning to read for main ideas and summarizing. The presentations have been good opportunities to practice speaking in front of the class and listening for content, with some basic note taking skills as well. There will be 3 grades on this project: one for group collaboration, one for the quality of the poster and one for individual participation. We will have an assignment on the characteristics of civilization due on Thursday. Math
The big event in math this week will be a quiz on Tuesday! This quiz will cover chapter 2, lesson 1-4. Converting between decimals, percents, and fractions/mixed numbers is what this quiz is all about. Please use online tutors, the book, spiral notebook, and links/class notes posted under math and science to help review these concepts. Students have known about this quiz for over a week, so there should be no surprises! The remainder of the week will be spent continuing our way through chapter 2. Science In science this week we will continue to learn about the Earth-Sun-Moon system. Students will continue to read and learn about seasons and their causes, and complete many activities in class. To support this material, a homework assignment comparing rotations and revolutions will be sent home on Monday and due on Wednesday. English Language Arts, Reading and History Writing: Students did an amazing job on writing their Unforgettable Events. I will be reading those through with grades in PowerSchool by Friday. Ordinarily, I would be talking about individual writing conferences, but the schedule has left me to talk to students when I can, not necessarily a personal conference. We will begin our pen pal letters this week. Reading We continue reading Lightning Thief and reading books in Massachusetts Book Award Book Groups. We begin StudySync this week: Each day will have a different intro lesson Our focus this week will be on peer review, annotation of reading, context clues, reading comprehension and close reading. Grammar: We review parts of sentences to learn to build better sentences for our writing. History Classwork continues to have students working in groups to learn sections of Ancient History. Each group is preparing a presentation with a group poster which will be used to teach the class about each period of history: Mesopotamia - life, inventions, beliefs and conquerors, the Phoenicians and the Ancient Hebrews. Homework will be a map of a Mesopotamian city due on Friday. Math
This week in math, we will begin diving into chapter 2 lessons and concepts. After completing a preassessment and vocabulary last week, students are ready to start learning about decimals, percents, and fractions. MOST of this is not new to students, as they have worked on these skills in past years. On Monday and Tuesday, our focus will be converting between fractions and decimals. For the rest of the week, students will start learning how to show those same values in another way: percents. This fun song can help students remember how each part works. Science The Earth, Sun, and Moon are the first stops on our science journey this year! With fresh textbooks and lots of online resources, students will begin learning about the effects of the motions of the Earth and Moon. Rotations, revolutions, days, years, and seasons are all on the agenda for this week and next. There is not frequent homework in science, but students will be asked to create vocabulary flashcards for each lesson. This week, these are due on Wednesday. Please click here to learn how to log into math and science textbooks, along with ALEKS. These important resources can be used from home to make up missed work when absent or complete homework when a book is left at school. Tutors, extra help, and additional practice pages are great tools to have available to students. English Language Arts. Reading and History Writing- Students will be preparing a long paragraph on an Unforgettable Event in their lives. For this assignment, I would like to see the final copy (neat, best spelling and grammar, and in ink from a pen or a computer) due on Friday. We will work on some parts of this in class Reading- We have begun book discussion groups based on the Massachusetts Reading Book Awards to practice reading fluency. Students will also have an assignment to practice identifying important information from a non fiction text. This will be done in class. History- Students will be digesting information of some of the groups of the Ancient Middle East in small groups in preparation for teaching the class. The exercise focuses on the content of the Ancient Middle East and skills such as note taking , paraphrasing, public speaking and preparing an class presentation. Most of the assignment will be done at school but students are welcome to take their parts home for an extra polish. |