Science News Week of 9/21

Over the past week, we have been doing several labs to see how variables affect the outcome of our experiments. We will continue with some more hands on activities this week, and begin reviewing for our variable unit test, which will be the following week.

Monday: Lifeboat Lab Conclusions, Design Your Own Boat Challenge

Tuesday:  Vocabulary Check, Flippers Lab part 1, Non-fiction text reading assignment (in class)

Wednesday:  Flipper Lab part 2

Thursday: Flipper Lab part 3

Friday: Flipper Lab Conclusion, Variable Review

Looking forward to another great week in science!

ELA News Week of 9/21

*Students should continue to be reading their September book.  We will be doing our monthly one pager, which is similar to a test/book report, in class on the 30th.  The one pager can't be done ahead of time, so the best way for them to prepare is by having their book completed and also to do their Weekly Reading Evidence paragraphs to practice writing about their book.

Monday: Starting literature circles for Freak the Mighty. We will also learn about theme.

Tuesday: Read a short fiction story and analyze its theme. Work time for lit circle reading and role sheets.

Wednesday: Lit circle discussion. Will read a non-fiction article in class as well.

Thursday: Write an objective summary of the non-fiction article from Wed. (turned in for a grade)
                Students will also get time to work on their Weekly Reading Evidence paragraph 3 (also turned in for a grade- due by Fri).

Friday:  Lit circle discussion.  Work time on Weekly Reading Evidence paragraph 3.

Math News Week of Sept. 14-18

This week has been focused on division with decimals and we are off to a great start! Here are the assignments that are due this week. Looking ahead, our first test (Chapter One) will be late next week.

9/14    Lesson 1D-E    A: Pg 40-41 #11-23 odds, 31,  49-57 odds

9/16    Lesson 2A    A: Pg 43-46 #3-17 odds, 33, 37, 39, 43, 45

9/17    Lesson 2D-E    A: Pg 52-53 #9-23 odds, 29-33 odds

9/18    Lesson 3A    Pg 58-59 #1-7 odds, 23, 25, 35, 39

Social Studies News Week of: Sept. 14th

This week in Social Studies, we'll have a few assignments that will be completed mainly in class, however if a student does not finish the assignment in class, they'll need to check out a textbook so they can complete the assignment for homework.

Monday-Ch. 1 Sec. 1 Assignment is due.  Students either finished this in class last Friday or needed to complete it for homework over the weekend.

Wed.-"Prehistory" chart was due.  This assignment was completed in each student's social studies notebook. It was then either turned in after class Tuesday or first thing Wed.  The grade can be found on the chart in their notebook.

Thurs.-Ch. 1 Sec. 3 Assign. is due.  Students worked on this in class on Wed. and will complete it on Thursday.

**We've also been working on the Ch. 1 Key Terms in the 4th section of their 5-subject SS notebooks.  You can check to see the important words in our current unit by checking this section of the notebook.

***If your child has math class with me, you can check Mr. O'Connor's math blog as our classes will mirror each other throughout the year***

Science News Week of Sept. 14

Last week, the students did a wonderful job on their Metric quizzes, and we are now into our first unit involving variables. Last Thursday, they were assigned a non-fiction text analysis and summary. If they did not finish this in class, it is due Monday, Sept. 14. This week, we will finish up our first variable lab on pendulums, talk about density, and start our second investigation on lifeboats to continue our understanding of variables.

Monday: Day 2 of Pendulum Variable Lab- Testing Variables
*Non-Fiction Text Analysis is Due*

Tuesday: Day 3 of Pendulum Variable Lab- Graphing and Making Predictions

Wednesday: Pendulum Lab Conclusions, Density Lab

Thursday: Day 1 of Lifeboat Variable Lab

Friday: Day 2 of Lifeboat Variable Lab, Lifeboat Lab Conclusion

ELA News Week of Sept. 14

*Some students did not finish their week 1 reading evidence paragraph in class on 9/11, so they will need to do it over the weekend as homework and turn it in on Monday.

Here is the plan for next week as of now.  Occasionally we end up going faster or slower than expected, but your child will get each day's plan at the start of class, along with any deadlines to write in their assignment notebook. As always, the daily homework is to be reading their September one pager book!

Monday: Text annotation & objective summary (graded, done in class)

Tuesday: Text annotation & discussion (graded)

Wednesday: Questioning strategies, annotation, & discussion (graded)

Thursday: Week 2 paragraph (done in class, graded)

Friday: Objective summary (done in class, graded)

Social Studies News Week of: Sept. 8th

This week in Social Studies, we will be starting our unit on the Beginnings of Human Society.  There will be an assignment to go along with our 1st section that we'll start in class on Thursday.  This will be due in class on Friday.  Students should be able to get it finished during class time.  They're always able to check out a book or an atlas to take home with them if they don't get an assignment finished.

So far, the first week of school, we've been reviewing map skills as this will be an important skill throughout the semester as we tie geography to the places we're studying.  The first assignment to go into the grade book will be Ch. 1 Sec. 1 assignment which will be due on Friday.

As always, please let me know if you have any questions!