Language Arts
In language arts this week we learned about paragraph structure. We discussed how a paragraph has a beginning sentence that introduces the topic and then at least three sentences to support that topic. We also talked about how a paragraph has a sentence that closes the paragraph. The students practiced indenting the first sentence of a new paragraph. In Spanish it’s called sangrado. We reviewed the words that show order like first/primero or next/entonces. All these things are in preparation for our next writing assignment which will be a book report about the story we read in class called Amelia Bedelia.
Hopefully you had a chance to check out our self portraits and summaries on the bulletin board outside of our classroom. They did a wonderful job!
We also read the story called cuando se acerca una tormenta/When a storm arrives. Some vocabulary words that we discussed were: inundación/flood, embudo/funnel, tornado/tornado, torbellino,/whirlwind, ventisca/blizzard. The kiddos did a great job coming up with sentences using these words.
Phonics:
We discussed words with consonant blends like -cr as in escritura -tr, as in tren and -gr as in grande. Of course, the kiddos enjoyed drinking their consonant blend smoothies, after getting into groups and forming giant blenders. They had a blast!
Math
In math this week we started our chapter in Mental Math. We reviewed some math strategies like forming “10” when adding, adding doubles and adding doubles plus “1”. This unit is an important part of the Math in Focus curriculum and will help them to grasp the upcoming, more difficult concepts. In order for the students to get the most out of this and future lessons they would greatly benefit from practicing their basic addition and subtraction math facts at home.
History & Geography
We started off the week by taking a look at the life of Benjamin Franklin. We read about his various jobs, inventions, travels, and his work as a Founding Father. On Tuesday we watched a short Disney film about his life right before the Revolutionary War to the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Afterwards we made our own Benjamin Franklin Passports. The class had a great time discussing his life and doing work that honored him. We finished off the week with a read aloud on Thomas Jefferson. The class discussed the important things he did for this country including writing the Declaration of Independence, helping to design important architecture in Washington DC, and his involvement in establishing public education. We compared and contrasted his life to those of Benjamin Franklin and George Washington. We also discussed idioms that apply to this era and added to our time line.
Science
On Monday we wrote about the Earth’s crust and filled out a chart on what lives above, on top of, and inside the crust. On Thursday our read-aloud talked about natural disasters such as volcanoes and went more in-depth into what makes up the different layers of the Earth. We focused on solid and liquid aspects of these layers. On Friday we celebrated Earth Day by making a layered Earth ball out of play dough that has the crust, mantel, outer core, and inner core represented in it. For Earth Day, we also wrote a letter to our parents talking about why it is important to take care of our planet and ways that we can do this. The class reviewed what they have been learning about paragraphs in their Spanish Language Arts period of the day and applied this to what they were writing. We focused on sequencing transition words in our letters.
English Spelling
This week we practiced sorting our words once and then wrote them in simple sentences. Everyone did a great job on their spelling test Friday. I will be sending new sorts home on Monday. This week in our journals we wrote about what we have learned about the Earth as one entry and we also wrote a rough draft of our letter to our parents about ideas of how we could save the Earth. The students had wonderful and very enthusiastic ideas of what they could do to help our planet.
Art
This week all of the students are taking a break from their regular art projects to make some Mothers Day paintings. You will get to see their beautiful artwork in a couple weeks!