Week in Review

Students hit the ground running after break.  Here's the scoop.

Math- We took our Unit 7 test on multiplication this week and students did a great job. Kudos to all you parents who have been helping students memorize their times tables up through the twelves.  We will be needing those facts in the weeks ahead as we have begun a new unit on fractions.  This week students learned about numerators, denominators and unit fractions.  They are adding and multiplying unit fractions. No math homework this weekend.

Science- We finished up our investigation on the human skeleton.  Students looked at plastic models of two rodent bones and three chicken bones.  Their challenge was to identify the bones (femurs, tibulas, and fibulas and the type of joints that connect the bones (ball and socket connect the femurs to the pelvic bones while hinge joints connect the tibulas/fibulas to the femurs.)  By now, students should be seeing how human skeletons compare and contrast with animal skeletons.  Next week, we will move onto muscles and how they move the human body.

Reading- Students selected details from a non-fiction story to help them reach logical conclusions about the text that were not explicitly stated within the text. They also used a story map with a fictional text to help them identify the main elements, such as plot, characters, and main events.

Writing- Students have begun brainstorming ideas for the Young Authors Day stories.  They're using story maps to help them build a skeleton or framework for their projects.

Chess- Students reviewed the point value of all the pieces and practiced making decisions about what kind of trades were beneficial, not beneficial, or just plain equal to both sides. Students also learned about castling, long-castling and short-castling.  They practiced playing Quick Castle, a game that uses all the chess pieces and where both white and dark side try to first short-castle and then long-castle as early in the game as possible.

Thanks to all of you parents who remembered to sign both the responsibility charts and the reading logs. Starting this upcoming week, students who forget to bring in a signed responsibility chart on Monday will automatically forfeit their Friday Choice Time.  Unsigned reading logs result in a loss of 20 minutes of Choice Time.  Also new this week, students who earn all their stamps in a given week are rewarded with a certificate and a small piece of candy.  Today it was a hershey's kiss. We had 12 students who had stamp perfect weeks.  Congratulations to all of you who earned all your stamps this week.  That's a lot of impressive work!