Sharing a daily diary entry.
Language Arts
Keys points of realistic fiction include:
- The characters behave as people do in real life.
- The setting of the story is a real place or could be a real place.
- The events in the story could happen in real life.
Grammar: This week we learned about the strength of words and the tone we use in our writing. We
Everyone is proud of their daily writing and wants to share!
also talked about articles which accompany nouns. Articles indicate gender and number: el, la, los, las, lo, un, unos, una, unas.
Writing: This week we started writing our own realistic fiction. Students first made a plan, listing of things they have done, places they have been or would like to go, interesting people they have met. Then they made a rough draft using their notes. We talked a lot about tone, point of view, and setting the scene by painting a word picture. Next week we will work on revising our writing pieces.
Math
Students worked on completing the elapsed time portion of their ALEKS pie while rotating in math groups. The other rotation went over the math packet, answering any questions. The students took their unit exam on Thursday and did a great job. We brainstormed everything we already know about fractions and made a class poster. We will start our fractions unit on Monday. A math packet will come home Monday. Students should begin working on the fractions portion of their ALEKS pie.
Social Studies
This week we started off by doing an art lesson looking at some Kachina dolls and using geometric shapes to help a draw Kachina representations. We read about the Native Americans of the Northeast. We learned that they lived in longhouses, wigwams, and round roof clay and pole houses. We learned about the crops they grew, the way they governed themselves, and their belief system. The class was excited to finally be learning about the Iroquois whom we’ve been reading about in the chapter book The Children of The Longhouse. On Friday we began reading about Native Americans of the southeast and will go more in depth into their culture next week.
Science
In science this week we did an experiment on gravity and watched a short video. We read some trade books and reviewed what we’ve learned so far in our astronomy unit. On Friday we wrote a poem about space. Because we have so many passionate astronomers in our class that provide a wealth of information, I proposed an extra credit activity for anyone who wants to. Students may do a short research paper on any subject that has to do with space, besides planets. We’ve already done planet research. Students may work at home and in class when they are finished early with their seat work. They will have an opportunity to share this with the class when they are finished. Papers may be turned in any time during this unit.
English Spelling/Writing
We’ve been mixing things up a bit for spelling activities this week students can study with a partner in class and get points, they can also do a word word search for 10 points and then solve somebody else’s word search for another 10 points as long as the search is from their sort list. Thank you Jesse and Jack for giving us a word search template that we can now use in class. For grammar this week we worked on past and present verbs tenses.
We had fun going outside and writing in our journals on Thursday, we wrote about comparing and contrasting what we see in the nighttime sky to the daytime sky.
“If I were president” by Evan
I would stop war so no one is hungry and have better safety. I would also invest in a moon base for earth’s resources, because they are running out. I would also stop crime, stop letting guns hurt anyone, and making sure everyone has an education.
Music
This week the class learned how to recognize music notes: quarter, half, eighth, dotted quarter, and dotted half. We then played a few rounds of of musical Yahtzee. This was fun and the students are now more familiar and comfortable with their note recognition.