Language Arts / Artes del lenguaje
We had such a great time playing fun games, working on art projects, and reviewing concepts seen this term. We are also very sad to say good bye to a wonderful friend, Ale. We will miss you!
After working on reading and listening comprehension activities of our new unit, Going West, we spent time focusing on vocabulary and spelling. Students are taking home our new sentences for the dictado. It would be great if they could spend some time practicing them, at least once during spring break. We also spent time working on our verbs mini-books. Please have your child show you this project. This is a book that compiles common regular verbs in Spanish and their corresponding conjugations in present tense. As a way to keep Spanish alive during break, students were asked to do a short assignment. They also took home a book in Spanish. This book has several short stories.We will be working on this book as a class during our new book club this Spring.
I hope everybody enjoys their time off immensely! Everybody deserves it! Students were also encouraged to spend as much time outside exploring as possible. It would be great if students came back prepared to share their fun adventures with the class after break.
Science / Ciencia
We had such an amazing science week! We not only got to finalize our wonderful winter science studies (Environments), but also witnessed the most outstanding science presentations. Students were responsible for choosing an area of study seen during this term, conduct research and present their findings in front of the class. Students did such a marvelous work. They did very high quality work and delivered presentations maintaining perfect Spanish command. We could not be any more proud!
We are very excited about our Spring science module, Living Systems. It will be just as great (if not greater) as our previous science investigations. We will also get to put into practice all our knowledge creating, planning, and planting our school garden! Stay tuned!
Parents,
On April 22nd, our class will go on a field trip to Columbia Springs (read below). We have sent permission slips this week. Please make sure you return the signed slips after Spring break. Also, we are in need of six chaperons. Please let the teachers know if you are interested in chaperoning for this field trip.
– Friday, April 22nd from 9:30am-1:30pm. 4/5 split class will do Eco-Explorers. We will have a picnic afterwards.
· Dress for the weather! Everyone should be prepared to spend the day outside (wear clothing & shoes that can get wet and dirty & layers for the cold). We will be outside rain or shine!
· Pack it in, pack it out! If you will be having lunch on the property please be aware that Columbia Springs has a pack it in, pack it out policy. Please bring a garbage bag to collect lunch trash.
· Be involved!
http://www.columbiasprings.org/
History & Geography
We began our chapter on Lewis and Clark this week! At the beginning of the week we reviewed the information we received last week on the Louisiana Purchase and why it was so important. I had the students work on a web quest this week, where they were given a specific website to explore and find the answers to a work sheet about the Louisiana Purchase. As many of the students will be moving into middle school next year I think it is important that they continue to improve in being able to find resources online. We also di
d a short read-aloud on Lewis and Clark, which we were able to read outside because of the beautiful sun this week! The students took notes during this read aloud as there was a lot of important information that we will add to our lapbooks when we return from spring break as well as 5 new vocabulary words. Again, I did work to catch up students who were absent, I believe most of them are caught up now or only have a couple more things to add to their lapbooks to be caught up. We will be having a vocabulary quiz on our 5 new vocabulary words when we return from spring break. I have listed the vocabulary words and their definition here just in case anyone forgot to bring home their vocabulary sheet.
Expedition: A journey for a particular purpose (as for exploring).
Plains: A large area of level or rolling treeless land.
Louisiana Territory: Land stretching from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains and from the Canadian border to the Gulf of Mexico.
Louisiana Purchase: The United States purchase of the Louisiana Territory from France, which more than doubled the size of the United States.
Corps of Discovery: A group of men who signed on with Lewis and Clark to explore the far west.
Math
This week such a busy and exciting week! After our Chapter 6 test last week the students worked on correcting and missed problems and the explanations of the correct answer. I feel that test corrections are so important especially in math, to get students really looking at their work and what mistakes were made. Many students found that they made the same mistake on multiple problems and were able to correct and understand what they did wrong. We then jumped to chapter 12 to continue our work with angles. We discussed what we already knew about angles and review information they may have forgotten that will be needed in this next chapter. I know many students were gone the past week so the last two days of class this week so I did work with them on anything they missed and making sure they understood all the information covered in chapter 6. I did assign pages 101-104 for homework over spring break. They should also have a “Lets Practice” piece of scratch paper were they worked out similar problems, this is a great tool to help them with their homework over spring break.
English Spelling/ Vocabulary
We did receive new spelling lists this week from Lesson 25. I pass out the usual packets that the students are used to getting but did not assign them a due date this time. I wanted the students to have access to their packets all week so that they could study for their spelling test on Friday. We did a $100 word warm-up using our spelling lists to familiarize ourselves with the words for the week. Each letter in the alphabet was assigned a value between $1 and $26 and the students had to add up how much each word was worth. They were then able to compare what their “cheapest” words were, their most “expensive” and if they had any $100 words. I also redid our Mountain Language system this week to include the students spelling lists. This way they are not only practicing their grammar skills but also practicing spelling their words. Again, we played BAM! this week for review which the students absolutely love.
Music
We tied up a few loose ends from the core curriculum in years when we were mostly singing in Spanish: read a translation of Goethe’s “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” and watched videos of it played by an orchestra, and then the Disney version from “Fantasia.” We started work on individual compositions, with lyrics to be drawn from words starting with the letters of each student’s name.