Language Arts / artes del lenguaje
Have you ever wondered what the purpose of a newsletter is? What is the purpose of this particular newsletter? This would be a good thing to discuss with your child.
This week our focus during literacy was on expository writing, Aticulos periodisticos. Students had a challenging assignment where they had to pretend to be reporters form a magazine or a newspaper. The prompt for this writing assignment was the following: write an expository piece to inform our audience about the 4th/5th grade field trip to Columbia Springs. Students went through the writing process to accomplish this project successfully. We worked on all the different aspects to consider when writing a piece from the perspective of a third person. We discussed, once again, the differences between facts and opinions and the importance of remaining unbiased. We talked about word choice, transitions words, language structure (past tense and subject-verb agreement), interviews and quotes (direct and reported speech), and how to integrate these pieces to write clearly and effectively. The outcome was brilliant! Students had a chance to share their pieces with the class and receive valuable feedback and compliments from peers! Make sure you stop by our Spanish bulletin board next week to read their published work.
This week we continued with our short stories book club Beisbol en abril. We had the pleasure to have two groups, Connor and Madi, as well as Eva and Riley, facilitate our discussions. Great job readers! We look forward to having Bailey, Azalea and Carsen on Monday and Tuesday. Then, we will be finalizing our book club with Alli, Alana and Santiago on Thursday and Friday. Be ready!
We have finished our unit Going West. Our last reading/listening activity focused on an excerpt of the book “La hija de la fortuna” by Isabel Allende. This story, called Argonautas, is set in a little town called San Fracisco in the 1850. It tells the stories of settlers that came west in search of a better life, facing many difficulties and challenges. Next week we will have a full science week, but we will be ready to star our new Literacy unit, Our Place in this Universe, the week after next
Science / ciencia
After setting up our goals and expectations for our new science module, Living Systems, we started our first Investigation, Systems. Our guiding question was: What is a system? How can you identify a system?
Students were introduced to a system as a collection of interacting parts that work together to make a whole or produce an action. They were presented with a common device (Maya’s hiking backpack and luggage) and identified all the elements that go together to make that system. We also talked about what happens if one part brakes or stops working. Students were also introduced to the concept of subsystems. As homework, students were asked to give, draw and explain four examples of systems that they can think of. Students need to be ready to share on Monday.
History & Geography
This week we learned all about Mountain Men! We began the week by doing a read- aloud and discussion over the book Mountain Men & Trappers. We learned all about how the Mountain Men lived, how they collected supplies, and their annual meeting called a rendezvous. The students then made WANTED posters to try a recruit mountain 
men. The posters describe the qualities a Mountain Man should have and what a typical day as a Mountain Man will look like. These are posted around the school if you have not had a chance yet to take a look I will keep them posted this week as well. On Thursday many of the students dressed up like Mountain Men so that we could have our own rendezvous! Each student was given a role either as a Mountain Man or as a representative of a Fur Trading Company. Each Mountain Man and Company was given a certain number of supplies ,for 
example, a Mountain Man could have 15 beaver pelts, but then owns the American Fur Trading Company 2 pelts and a Fun Trading Company could have 10 sets a of beads, blankets, knives, and hatchets to trade for pelts. The students then began trading with each other until all the Mountain Men 
had their needed supplies for the winter and the Fur Companies had received as many pelts as they could. After the first round we discussed certain trends. Such as how things that were in 
short supplies , such as buckets, were very expensive while things that we had an abundance of like beads were pretty cheap. We then switched so that all the Mountain Men were part of a fur trading company and all the representatives were Mountain Men. The students tried to use their prior knowledge from the last round to help achieve better results this time. it was so much fun to see the strategies each student used and to watch them bargain for supplies. 
Math
This week in math we expanded upon our knowledge of triangles and being able to find different missing angles. We began by looking at how we could classify triangles. First by their sides (equilateral, isosceles, and scalene) and then by their angles (right, acute, and obtuse). We then found different tricks that help us find missing angles depending on what type of 
triangle we are working with. We began by looking a right triangles. We discovered that if you have a right triangle the two angles that are not equal to 90º must not only be acute but must also have the sum of 90º. We than worked with isosceles triangles and found that in an isosceles there will always be two equal angles that are across from the two equal sides. Using that knowledge we are able to find the missing angles of any isosceles as long as we are given at least the measure of one angle. Finally, we worked with equilateral triangles and discovered that no matter what the side lengths are an equilateral triangle will always have to angle measurements of 60º. The students do have some math homework this weekend that helps review and reinforce these concepts.
English Spelling/ Vocabulary
This week we were able to move the students back into using the Words Their Way curriculum. It was a fairly simple transition since most kids have used it in passed years.I have developed a routine for us to follow each day, with only a portion of the class taking tests on each day. The students received a 24 word list and will have one week to work in class with their words. Then they will be tested on 12 randomly selected words. Although this week was a little tricky I was able to meet one on one with everyone to make sure that everything was clear.
We also worked a lot on writing this week. We made pre-writes for 2 mini essays we wrote during class. These pre-writes not only helped us get our ideas down but also helped us organize our thoughs and make sure we have all the needed requirements. We also continued using COPS (Capitals, Order/Organization, Punctuation, and Spelling) to edit our own and each other’s writing.
Art
All the students continued working on their Mother’s Day pictures and cards. I know you’ll enjoy their colorful, awesome artwork! Next week we’ll resume a variety of art projects. I can’t believe there are only 6 more weeks of school and 6 art classes with this very creative group!