Language Arts and Science
What a fun loving week we had! In literacy, we spent time working on spelling and reviewing some concepts of grammar. Students did a terrific job in both their reading comprehension quiz of the book Las plantas and a small writing assessment. All the hard work is definitely paying off. This week students took home a new book. Please make sure your child continues to practice their reading in Spanish daily. We culminated our week in Literacy working on some fun language and writing Valentine’s Day projects.
While students continued to record their observations of their terrariums they were encouraged to check their predictions about the growth and development of their plants. They shared their thoughts, as well as compared and contrasted changes. Students will continue to make decisions about their terrarium based on their experiences. Students are starting to think about our school garden, and the plants that would most likely do well in that particular environment.
We started our Investigation 2: Bugs and Beetles. Following the guiding questions, “What type of environment do isopods and beetles prefer? How much moisture do isopods and beetles prefer?, student constructed aluminum foil runways in order to find out the organisms’ environmental preferences. They also used these runways to see how these organisms responded to the environmental factor of water and light. We used this opportunity to discuss the concept of variable.
Students did a great job turning in their science homework packets!
Math
We worked hard and had a great time learning about dividing fractions this week! We had practice with dividing fractions by fractions, fractions by whole numbers and fractions by improper fractions. Again this gave us a nice opportunity to gain experience with presenting answers in their simplest form. We were fortunate to have Ms. Wagner in our room on Thursday to help out with a culminating dividing fractions project. Some students worked with her to create a paper pizza (using donated 
pizza boxes) and invent their own fractions for individual toppings. These students also created their own story problem equations which will require other students to solve a division fraction problem using the created pizza. Others spent time on Thursday using white boards to practice all of the steps involved with the process, and then enjoyed a game of “Dividing the Dice”. It was a productive week for math!
History & Geography
We finished our at home research about Early Russia and spent time in class reading more and looking at Power Point
s to gain more insight into the culture, people, and ideas of how Russia started out politically and religiously. Next week we will begin a new and exciting unit on Feudal Japan! Stay tuned for more at home requirements that will allow students to dive deeper into the rich history of Japan!
Art
The 4th and 5th graders had a choice of finishing up some weaving projects or working on their figure collages. Some students worked on the background for the figure collage, and some made Valentine weavings, and some finished a weaving still life. I’m always wishing there was more time in art for this creative and artistic group of students!