January News

                                



In January, students will be immersed in learning about folktales in our third Language Arts Unit. Students will discuss the importance of knowing the characteristics of different genres so that they will be better readers.  Knowing the characteristics of genres enables students to set expectations about what they will be reading. For instance, in realistic fiction, although the story is fiction, the characters experience real problems and solutions. The setting is real.  The dialogue that occurs in the story is what would be expected in every day conversations.

                              



Once students have discussed the characteristics of various genres, then students will learn the characteristics of folktales. First they will explore tall tales and identify the characteristics associated with tall tales.

                                
                               

Students will read several tall tales, like Paul Bunyan and The Bunyans. After reading these two stories, students will compare and contrast these stories.

                                        


                                        

Students also had the opportunity to read Pecos Bill and discuss the characteristics of this tall tale.


                                         

Following these stories, students will read some international folktales. The class will read The Seven Chinese Brothers and discuss the genre characteristics of this story.


                                  


                                      

After students read this story, they will summarize it. This will be followed by discussing the theme and lesson in the story.  In addition, students will also read the book, The Five Chinese Brothers.


                                          




 
                                                 

After reading these two stories, students will compare and contrast them.

                               

In writing, students will write a narrative story about a lesson a character learned.

                                      

Students will have the opportunity to read and listen to stories in which the characters learned a lesson. Some stories that have a lesson learned are the following:

                                   

                               
 
                                         

The lessons learned in these texts are easy for students to understand and inspire them to undertake their own story about a lesson learned using their background knowledge.

Mathematics

The class is learning about fractions in January. The students first start the unit by folding paper into halves, fourths, eighths, thirds and sixths.


                                       


                     

Then students will apply this knowledge of fractions by using a number line and dividing the number line into fractional parts.



                                           







Following this, students will discuss equivalent fractions.



                         

Science

Students will keep a moon log for a month to understand the phases of the moon.


                                         


Students will learn the names of the phases and come to understand various facts about the moon. The students are very curious and enthusiastic about this unit.

                

December News

                                           

Reading

Students are working on identifying main idea and supporting details as they read nonfiction texts. They have learned sometimes the main idea is explicit and they can find it in the body of a paragraph. It may be the first or last sentence of a paragraph.  Other times it may be inferred. They have to make an inference based on the details contained in the entire paragraph and develop a main idea statement.

                                          

Writing

Students are creating a pamphlet based on what they learned about the Wampanoag Native Americans. Their pamphlet will contain written information they learned about the food, clothing, way of life, and homes of the Wampanoags.

                                        

Mathematics

Students have started a new unit in math.  They will be learning about U.S. standard and metric units of measurement for length. In addition students will delve into finding perimeter and area of objects.

                                       


Social Studies

Students will start the second part of the Native American unit in which they will learn about a different region in the United States. Students will explore the Plains Region. While studying this region they will learn about the Plains Native American's homes, food, and way of living.

LOCATION:

                                       


HOMES:

                                                 

FOOD:

                          

WAY OF LIVING:

STAY TUNED FOR FURTHER DEVELOPMENT IN ROOM 17....

November

Language Arts -

     

                         

Students are starting a new unit in language arts in which they will read nonfiction texts. Students are learning meta-cognitive strategies to help them with reading comprehension. One way to monitor their understanding of their reading is using fix-up strategies. 

      

                                                                   

Another concept being introduced is to stop, think and react to what they have read.  When a reader reacts, they think about how they are feeling, make a connection or ask a question about what they read.

Students have finished writing their personal narratives from the previous language arts' unit. Here are some samples of their stories.

               

Fun time on the Fireball

By Anusha

     

       Do you know what it feels like when you ride a huge roller coaster ? It was really scary and fun. “Wahoo!” I said jumping up and down. My family and I were going to Six Flags Amusement Park. I have been waiting so long to go to Six Flags so I could ride the new roller coaster, The Fireball.The T.V ads were really awesome and thrilling. When my family and I got there I saw a lot of my friends and my sister’s friends. I wanted to go to The Fireball right away. I asked my dad, “Can Akash and his dad come with us? He said, “They can come if they want.” I was so excited. When we got there, there was a long line. I didn’t care. I would do anything to go on that ride! When it was our turn, I was really scared. When we got on one of the sections, I buckled up really tight. As the ride started I closed my eyes clutching the cold, hard bar. When we were upside down my dad said,”Open your eyes Anusha!” I didn’t want to but I did. Guess what? It was really fun! I wanted to do it again and again and so did Akash.That’s when I learned fun things happen to you when you are brave. 

The Viola Performance

by Nikhil  

Have you ever performed and played an instrument in front of complete strangers? Voooooooorm ! The car started. I got in with my viola and books. I was nervous and excited at the same time. It was the first time I  had a performance. The place where the recital was a half an hour drive but it felt like 2 hours. When  we got there I didn’t want to go in but I kept it to myself. When we got in the place there was a table with lots of food. I saw the older kids setting up. I sat down in a chair feeling worried. My parents said, “Are you ready?” I said, “Yes.” But I didn’t  really mean it. Then people started coming in. I was  pacing around thinking about all the possible things that could go wrong. All of a sudden it was my turn. I ran to my parents and started crying a bit. Then both my parents said, “Be brave!” I got my viola out of the case. I started playing the first song. I was sweating like a rain storm on my face but then I realized everybody was cheering. That gave me the confidence so then I played feeling confident. By the time it was over I wanted to do it again. My viola teacher said, “You did great!” but sadly I had to leave. The moral is always have confidence.         

          

In math students are being introduced to multiplication through the context for learning lessons called Grocery, Stamps, and Measuring Strips.

                               

                

Students were presented with the produce section of a grocery store whereby they were to calculate the total of the items displayed in the grocery store. 

                                 

Some students used repeated addition, others applied skip counting and finally some utilized multiplication strategies to figure out the total. 

Then students were shown groups of stamps and asked to find the totals of these.

                                                          

Finally students had to create their own arrays of stamps, assign a value for the stamps and calculate the totals.

 Students just finished writing stories about their Native American Puppets. The stories included their Native American name and the origins of their name. Students wrote about their character traits and examples of these traits. Then students depicted their Native American family. Last, students related the daily jobs that their character performed as a child, mom, or dad in their family.

                                                                 

Students will now transfer their learning of Native Americans to a nonfiction writing piece as part of this unit.

UNTIL NEXT TIME....

                               

Welcome Back to the 2016-2017 School Year

Language Arts

                                 

Students will delve into a reading and writing unit in which they will explore the character's feelings and character traits.  Students will read various stories as a whole class.


After reading students will brainstorm a list of feeling words.






Following this, students will explore the feelings of the characters in the stories they read and explain what evidence from the story supports the feelings they have chosen. After describing a character's feelings as a whole class, with a small group, and with a partner, students will apply this newly learned information to their guided reading group books. When they read in a small group, they will be expected to discuss and respond to questions related to the character's
feelings.
             

Furthermore, students will differentiate between character's feelings and a character's traits. Once they understand this, students will formulate a list of character traits.  Students will then review the stories read so far and choose a character trait for each character and provide examples from the story to support the character trait they chose.


                           

Writing               

The writing performance task for this unit involves students writing a personal narrative about a time they made a choice or decision and how it affected others. In order for students to be prepared for this, the class listens to and reads stories in which the character's have experiences which are relevant to the kind of personal narrative they will be writing.  Some stories the students have heard are:

Ira Says Goodbye     


Ira Sleeps Over           



 Too Many Tamales       



  and The Honest to Goodness Truth.

Following this, students will explore some ideas for their writing topic. The class will brainstorm a list of their ideas in an effort to help inspire each other.  Then students will use a graphic organizer of their choice to outline the story they plan to write.  From this point, students will discuss the techniques of a strong lead or entertaining beginning.  Then students will start the writing process.  They will share their writing with each other and discuss ways to add more elaborative detail.  They will conference with each other as well as the teacher.

Mathematics

Students are learning to add and subtract three digit numbers.  They will use their understanding of place value to help them with their calculations.

When adding and subtracting, one strategy students use is a number line.











Another strategy students will employ is breaking the number apart.


                              

Social Studies

Our class has started the Native American unit in which students will study about the Wampanoag Native Americans.  They will learn about their way of living, the foods they ate, the houses they lived in and how they used their environment to survive.

As part of this unit, students visit Wood Memorial Library on a field and have first hand experience on the tools the Native Americans made, the food they ate and the way they lived.