Friday, May 6

Hello Friends and Families!

Here are the updates from this week.

We Need...

More snack.  It has finally happened that all the Goldfish the Small family donated as been devoured.  We also need more disinfecting wipes.

MCAS

Next week we will take our last MCAS of the year.  Our Math MCAS will be on Tuesday, starting at 9 am, and on Friday, also starting at 9 am.  Please make sure your child gets plenty of rest the night before.  They may bring in gum to chew while taking the test as well.

A New Home

As I will be moving to LA this summer, our fish and plants will need a new home.  If you, or someone you know,  would like to adopt the fish please let me know.  Thanks!

Our Learning

This week we continued our  Mysteries of Science unit.  Students continued to make observations about a variety of minerals.  They recorded these in their mineral notebooks.  Next week, we will create a guide to minerals and use our guide to solve our first science mystery.

In Reading we started our new book clubs. Students are reading mysteries.  We also learned new "detective" vocabulary words like red herring, alibi, and sleuth.  After using our newfound knowledge to solve a mystery in the book Grandpa's Teeth, we watched an episode of Where on Earth is Carmen Sandiego?  As we watched, we checked off the ingredients of a mystery.  We noticed important characters, clues, and plot developments.  Next week we will continue our book clubs and learn how to keep track of clues, narrow down our suspects, and make inferences to solve our mystery!

In Writing we continued our work in poetry.  Students have learned a variety of tools poets use including: rhyme, simile, metaphor, personification, alliteration, and onomatopoeia.  We read a variety of poems from poets such as William Blake, Langston Hughes, and Paul Fleischman.  Next week we will continue to look at poems and how they are structured.

Math this week focused on fractions.  Students learned to put fractions in order of size, combined fractions to equal one whole, and learned to write equations with fractions. We also started to look at fractions of a set.  For example, if I have 12 cookies and I gave you 1/2, how many cookies would you get?  This was a little difficult for some students so we will continue to explore this idea.  We also took a practice MCAS to get familiar with the format.  Next week we will take our Math MCAS as well as continue work with fractions.

I really enjoyed meeting with each of you the past two weeks in our student-led conferences.  Thank you for taking the time to do this and for trying the new format.  I was very impressed with each student and I am thrilled with the goals they have set for themselves!  I would love to hear your feedback on the process, what you liked and what could I add in the future.


Have a great weekend!  Happy Mother's Day!

Sincerely,
Meg