Language Arts
In Literacy this week, w
e spent our time working on a collaborative class project, Desastre inminente: volcanes, terremotos y tornados. Amongst these three titles, (Volcanoes, Earthquakes, Tornadoes), students had a chance to select one book to read during the holidays. This week students got together in collaborative groups to work on a project that will assess their comprehension, as well as their ability to retell the message of story to others. In order to complete this project entailing a poster and an oral presentation, students were given a rubric explaining the expectations and information about the pieces they needed to include in the project. Students were expected to complete this assignment in class with materials and resources provided by the school. They did a fantastic job completing the different stages of the project. They even took it to the next level, elaborating models, puppets and creative artistic pieces. We will be having our presentations on Tuesday next week.
Science
During science this week, we focused on identifying the main ideas of the book Los habitats y el medio ambiente, and discussed how these ideas connect to our new unit: Environments. We spent time introducing vocabulary and key concepts we will see during the course of our investigations. It was also a great opportunity to talk about non-fiction text features. We took a closer look at diagrams and interpreting information and data. One of our goals is for students to be able to answer comprehension questions drawing information from a table or a diagram. We have scheduled a quiz for Thursday that will assess said skill along with using evidence from the text to answer multiple choice questions, among others. Please make sure that your child reads their book over the weekend.
This week in English/Math, we have been doing a bakery project in which we have been working with lots and lots of fractions. So, on Friday we could bring in baked goods and present our bakery sign, slogan, logo, a fractions word problem, and explain how we used fractions in our bakery. ~By Azalea and Alana
Art
The 4th and 5th graders finished their realistic shoe drawings this week in art. They used colored pencil and markers for the shoes and background. I put their beautiful drawings back up on the bulletin board at school so be sure to look at this impressive artwork!
Music
Spirituals, slavery and the Civil Rights Movement were our topics for today. We discussed the parallels between the end of slavery in the South and the biblical exodus, and learned Follow the Drinking Gourd and Go Down, Moses.