Wow, this short week sure has flown by quickly! In honor of the holiday and day off from school we had on Monday, we did a mini unit on Martin Luther King Junior this week. I read aloud a short biography of this great man's life one day and students then watched his famous "I Have a Dream" speech. We spent several days talking about why Dr. King was an important person in the history of the United States. Students even wrote their own dreams and shared them with the class.
We continued with our Response to Literature unit this week and as a class we finished writing a rough draft together of a response to the short story "Jack and Billy". For now students are being asked to write a 3 paragraph response. The first paragraph is the introduction, the second is the body, and the third and final paragraph is the conclusion. Next week the class will be reading another short story and will be writing a 3 paragraph response all on their own.
In math we finished up unit 5 on multiplication with larger numbers and took the unit test. I will have the tests graded and returned to the class next week. On Friday we started our January/February Problem of the Month, Miles of Tiles. Next week we will begin the next unit which will start off with division of larger numbers and working with remainders.
In science I gave the students back their I-Check quiz from the first investigation of our current unit (Electricity and Magnetism) and I was over all very pleased with how they did. This week we started our next investigation and learned more about electricity and making circuits. Students are really excited about all the hands on science they are getting to do with this unit. You may have noticed that your child is bringing home more science homework lately. My reason for this is that we only have each science kit for a limited amount of time before it has to be returned and then sent onto another school. Since I want to spend as much of our class time together doing science (all the really cool hands on stuff) I am going to have them do more of the reading and writing at home. Most of the work will be writing answers to the review questions from the book and finishing up their conclusions for each lab. We will always start the conclusions in class but many times they will need to be finished at home. Students are very aware of my expectations for their conclusions but if you have any questions, please feel free to ask.
This week we were very lucky to have our first art lesson as part of the 12 week program funded by our generous Home and School Club. This week's lesson focused on Line and Shapes. Students were very engaged and seemed to enjoy the lesson. I can't wait to see the finished products they produce!
Friday, January 24, 2014
Friday, January 17, 2014
Update January 17, 2014
Happy New Year Room 14 Families!
I hope that you all had a wonderful break. I know that I enjoyed my time off with my two little boys, Cooper and Logan. We had the chance to visit with family, go to the zoo, and of course play with all the new toys that they got for Christmas.
Now that we are back from break, we are just as busy as always in room 14. Last week we started unit 5 in math that is all about multiplying larger numbers. This a a short unit and we will be wrapping it up early next week and will be taking the unit test on Thursday, Jan. 23rd. In reading we finished up our last article in the current issue of National Geographic Explorer which was "Attack of the Germs". This seemed fitting with all the colds going around lately. For writing we began our next genre of study, Response to Literature. We have spent time looking at samples of other students responses and then this week we read a short story together as a class. We are now in the process of writing a three paragraph response to it together. In social studies we are continuing with the current unit and are learning more about the influence of the Spanish in California. Soon we will be studying about the mission system and I plan to assign a research project to go along with it. I will be sending out more information as soon as I assign it to the class. In science we investigated with magnets and learned that as the distance between two magnets increases, the force will decrease. We also used a compass and iron filings to detect magnets hidden in boxes.
Since next week is a short week due to Monday's holiday in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr., we will not be doing spelling.
Lastly I wanted to give a big congratulations to Ronak from our class. This week he was our class representative in the school wide spelling bee. Ronak did an amazing job and place 3rd over all. We are so proud of his hard work and effort! He spelled some very tough words that I would have had trouble with myself. Well done Ronak!
Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns.
Mrs. Barkve
I hope that you all had a wonderful break. I know that I enjoyed my time off with my two little boys, Cooper and Logan. We had the chance to visit with family, go to the zoo, and of course play with all the new toys that they got for Christmas.
Now that we are back from break, we are just as busy as always in room 14. Last week we started unit 5 in math that is all about multiplying larger numbers. This a a short unit and we will be wrapping it up early next week and will be taking the unit test on Thursday, Jan. 23rd. In reading we finished up our last article in the current issue of National Geographic Explorer which was "Attack of the Germs". This seemed fitting with all the colds going around lately. For writing we began our next genre of study, Response to Literature. We have spent time looking at samples of other students responses and then this week we read a short story together as a class. We are now in the process of writing a three paragraph response to it together. In social studies we are continuing with the current unit and are learning more about the influence of the Spanish in California. Soon we will be studying about the mission system and I plan to assign a research project to go along with it. I will be sending out more information as soon as I assign it to the class. In science we investigated with magnets and learned that as the distance between two magnets increases, the force will decrease. We also used a compass and iron filings to detect magnets hidden in boxes.
Since next week is a short week due to Monday's holiday in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr., we will not be doing spelling.
Lastly I wanted to give a big congratulations to Ronak from our class. This week he was our class representative in the school wide spelling bee. Ronak did an amazing job and place 3rd over all. We are so proud of his hard work and effort! He spelled some very tough words that I would have had trouble with myself. Well done Ronak!
Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns.
Mrs. Barkve
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