4th/5th Week 9

by | Oct 31, 2015 | In The Loop

Language Arts 
This week in literacy, it was all about writing! All our students published their expository pieces, that inform our SWS community about our annual fall fundraiser. All pieces are displayed on our bulletin board. Make sure you stop by and read the remarkable writing pieces our students are producing.  After finishing our expository writing, we made a transition to our narrative writing. Fall is always such an inspiration and gives us so many rich opportunities to explore a variety of topics, themes and develop vocabulary.  One of our favorite ones is, of course, Halloween and Dia de los muertos stories! I can’t wait to read their final pieces! With these projects, we are bringing our unit La herencia cultural (Cultural Heritage) to an end. We look forward to introducing our new literacy unit La energia en accion (Energy in Action) next week!

image2 (7)Science

 In connection with our Social Studies, our science investigation was very interesting. We got to work with materials such as 1/2 cup sugar,  2 -3 spoonful of water and 1 spoonful of merengue powder. We talked about the properties of them and made predictions of what would happen if we mixed them. We put our mixture in a particular kind of mold. After we let them sit over night, we discovered that our predictions where mostly right: the mixture hardened. We noticed that the sugar,  in some cases, was a little crumbly. Some others turned out very hard.  This goes along with the concept that different variables affect the end results. After we documented our process, we had so much fun adding one more material: paint!

Please note that students took home a science packet. The due date for this packet is November 6th. The packet includes a science project for you all to do at home, a math connection and a comprehension quiz of the book La mezcla de la materia students have been reading these past two weeks.  Please let me know if you have any questions.

Halloween Parade

Halloween Parade

Math

Students did a great job practicing the mastery of long division this week! Even those that had the most trouble in the beginning are able to complete an equation independently now! Kudos to their persistence! Next week we’ll start a new chapter, stay tuned!

Social Studies  

In History this week we explored further into the Renaissance, learning specifics about notable personalities such as Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Machiavelli and Raphael. We are only in the beginnings of exploring the Reformation, which will continue next week more in-depth. It was a fun and busy week!

IMG_6923Art

The 4th and 5th graders learned how to look for and use basic shapes to draw an eagle. Last year, they made pictures of the upper body of an eagle using torn paper, and this year we looked at photographs of bald eagles in flight, and noted the triangles, ovals, rectangles that could be seen in the head, body, and wings. The students did a wonderful job drawing and then adding color with oil pastel. You can see their impressive drawings on the bulletin board at school.

Music

Looking toward Thanksgiving, we learned a Chilean folk song, “Pavo, Pavo,” “Turkey, Turkey,” and considered the plucking of fowl in multiple languages, recalling the French Canadian song, “Alouette.”