Social Studies: The New England, Middle and Southern Colonies

     In Chapter 7 of Social Studies Alive we studied the three colonial regions, New England, Middle and Southern Colonies. Students worked on a Problem Solving Groupwork activity, students created a billboard for one of six British colonies and then tried to persuade other students to settle in their colony.
     The groups were amazing. They all worked so hard on coming up with slogans, catch phrases, billboards and presentations. I was so so proud of how their work turned out. Here are pictures of their finished billboards. 

Fractions

Last week we started some work with fractions! For many kids that word, "fractions" brings with it some scary and intimidating connotations. Many students just don't feel like they are "good at fractions". Most of our work during 2nd quarter revolves around fractions, comparing, ordering, converting, adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing! Because having a solid base knowledge and building confidence are very important, we have spent the last few days reviewing basic fraction concepts, including vocabulary of fractions, unit fractions and finding fractional parts of a whole. For some, this may have felt like a slow process. We promise challenge to come! We just needed to make sure everyone got started on the same foot.  We will be moving into comparing fractions starting tomorrow.

Math

We have been working on so many topics over the last couple of weeks. We've covered Mean, Median, Mode and Range, as well as Bar and Pie Graphs. We also practiced subtraction strategies, and symmetry.  Check out the great graphs kids made in class:

Non-Fiction Writing

Our writing goal this quarter is to write Non-Fiction pieces. Our "I Can" statements include: I can write informative/explanatory tests to examine a topic and convey ideas and information clearly. 
We will get to that goal by working on how to organize our writing, so our first lesson were on how to write complete and organized paragraphs. We learned about the three parts to a paragraph, the topic sentences, the detail sentences, and the concluding sentence. 

     Through the Gradual Release of Responsibility (GRR), first I wrote a paragraph, then we wrote a paragraph together, then the students wrote one on their own. We used sentence stems to help guide students through the process. 

We also discussed the important use of transition words when writing these kinds of paragraphs. Here is a list students taped into their writer's notebook so they would always have a reference. 

We now focus more closely on other parts of writing standard 5 W2: 

5.W.2a	I can introduce a topic clearly, provide a general observation and focus, and group related information logically; include formatting (e.g., headings), illustrations, and multimedia when useful to aiding comprehension.
5.W.2b	I can develop the topic with facts, definitions, concrete details, quotations, or other information and examples related to the topic.
5.W.2c	I can link ideas within and across categories of information using words, phrases, and clauses (e.g., in contrast, especially).
5.W.2d	I can use precise language and domain-specific vocabulary to inform about or explain the topic.
5.W.2e	I can provide a concluding statement or section related to the information or explanation presented.

We began with a reading on Zebras, which lead us to Close Reading, annotating, note taking, and sentence writing.  We using these two organizers to help with the step by step process of turning new information into well written, organized paragraphs. 

Ask your child about they work they did today with information on Raccoons.  

Dental Help

Nurse Lovell would like us to communicate with families that if anyone is need of help with dental work please contact her for she has some resources to share.   Her phone number is 204-3305.

Reminder!! Conferences this week!

Reminder that conferences are this week, most of them on Wednesday, unless otherwise scheduled with Ms. Sugar. It is really important that students attend their own conference. See you soon!

Trip to the Wisconsin Institute of Discovery

Although we did get a tad wet on the walk home we had a GREAT time at the WID learning about science. We learned about stem cells, how they are used and how scientists are discovering more each day about how to make new stem cells which in turn become differentiated into many other kinds of cells. 

We also saw how scientists freeze cells to store them for long term use. We experimented with liquid nitrogen, it was pretty smashing!! 

In the second lab we learned about plants and how scientists use robots to study things so that data can be collected efficiently and accurately.  We used codes to "drive" Ozobots along a route to collect data about our "plants".  It was totally cool!