Language Arts
We were very busy in our Language Arts (as always). We read a great historical fiction piece, La peluqueria del tio Jed. This is the story of a determined man who was also a loving uncle. Uncle Jed had a dream that was challenged by a family crisis and the Great Depression. This is his story, told from the viewpoint of his loving niece.
We worked on writing persuasive paragraphs. One topic for our daily journal writing was “It’s better to be happy than rich.” We also identified and wrote good beginnings and good endings. Combining sentences with y, o, pero/ and, or, but was also a lesson on making sentences more interesting.
Students received a new reader. They should be reading aloud to practice their fluency.
Geoboard fun!
Math
This week we began our unit on Angles and Lines. Our learning objectives this week were:
- find angles in plane shapes and real-world objects.
- compare the number of sides and angles on plane shapes.
- make a right angles.
- compare angles to a right angle.
- identify right angles in plane shapes.
- define and identify perpendicular lines.
- define and identify parallel lines.
Spelling (Test on Tuesday)
estuvo
carnívoro
obvio
brevedad
vez
versiones
vive
centavos
lucrativo
educativos
detective
nuevos
convirtió
dispositivo
inventó
History & Geography
This week we started off by finishing our Voyage Proposals. I hope all of you have had a chance to look at them on the bulletin board. The class had so much fun working on these! On Tuesday we read about Spanish settlements and missions. We discussed the role of the missions: converting the Native Americans to Christianity, teaching them European culture and farming techniques, and removing their own culture. We wrote about what we learned and added this information to our Expedition logs. On Thursday and Friday we read about John Cabot and found his route on the map. The class then read a brief biography on John Cabot and answered some written questions about the reading.
Science
This week we start off by talking about food chains and food webs. The class learned about how important each trophic level is to a food chain and what happens when the balance is thrown off. On Thursday in honor of Earth Day the class designed their own board game to save the Earth. They had a great time designing games and using recycled material to create it. On Friday the class had game time for one period; everyone found some to share their games with. They had a blast! Afterwards each person wrote a review of the games she/he played and gave these to the designer of the game. For Earth Day, we also brainstorm ideas that we could do at home to help the planet. The students then wrote a persuasive letter encouraging you, their families, to make the change at home. Not only was this a way for the class to review their persuasive writing skills but it also was an opportunity for them to learn their addresses, if they haven’t done so yet.
English Spelling
For grammar this week we worked on reviewing past tenses and plurals. In our journals he wrote about how doing a project for the Children’s Center last week made us feel, and what we liked about it. We worked on our spelling activities and did our sorts this week. Over all the class did an amazing job on their spelling scores this week!
Art
This week all of the students are taking a break from their regular art projects to make some Mother’s Day paintings. You will get to see their beautiful artwork in a couple weeks!
Music
This week the class worked on reinforcing the lyrics of one our longer songs, “El pequeño panda de Chapultepec, which celebrated the birth at Mexico City’s Chapultepec zoo of the first-ever panda cub born outside China. We also continued work on “Life is a Dance.”