Monday, February 22, 2010

Monday, February 22, 2010

Today's Homework:
Take Home Reader 20 minutes
Reading
  • Esperanza Rising -- assignment due tomorrow -- check your child's response journal for his/her assignment
  • Riding Freedom -- no homework

Math -- Angles WS

Today's Objectives:

Math -- took a test on Angles, Triangles, Polygons; reviewed Calendar Math

Reading -- worked on Writing Menu and our Hard Bound Books -- we will be working on these for the next few weeks

SS -- worked in pairs to take notes on "Americans and the Revolution"

Science -- took a test on Weather, Clouds, Weather Fronts

FREEDOM TRAIL field trip money AND permission slip due Tuesday, February 23, 2010. Our trip is Friday, February 26, 2010. Thank you to all who have already sent in their child's money and permission slip.

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Today's Homework:
Take Home Reader 20 minutes

Reading ~
  • ER -- finish summary; collecting journals tomorrow
  • RF -- read chapter 5; collecting journals tomorrow

Math ~ text pg. 402 (#4-15)

SS ~ finish "Declaring Independence" notes WS

Today's Objectives:

Math ~ discussed polygons -- types of polygons, number of degrees in each polygon, how to find the degrees in a polygon; regular and irregular polygons

Reading ~ worked on our Word Study book -- focusing on the suffix "s"; began a discussion on finding the main idea and supporting details and how these differ when reading fiction and nonfiction; read Alexander, Who Used to be Rich Last Sunday to prepare for finding main idea and supporting details from this story tomorrow; students worked on writing menu; met with Esperanza Riding group and had a great discussion regarding the Great Depression, dust storms, migration, and the Mexican Revolution

SS ~ students worked in groups of 3 and took notes on the text they read yesterday pg. 88-89

Science ~ students worked in groups of 3 and began working on their study guide for Clouds, Weather Fronts, Atmospheric Movement -- Coach book pg. 101-107

UPCOMING EVENTS:

We have 2 reading programs (in addition to our AR program).

The first, EBOB -- Elementary Battle of the Books, began right before winter break. For this program, students need to read the 12 EBOB books and have an average of 85% or higher to qualify for the competition, which will be held after spring break.

The second, WS Dash -- students read 5 books within a time frame and score 80% or higher on each of the 5 books. The students receive a special prize after each set of 5 books.

Please encourage your child to read. These are excellent programs and they are FREE to you!

FREEDOM TRAIN field trip money is due by February 24th. The trip costs $9. We will be going on our trip on Friday, February 26th. This information was sent home in the Wednesday folder.

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Today's Homework:
Reading ~ Take Home Reader 20 minutesLanguage Arts ~

  • ER (Esperanza Rising) group complete Word Wizard
  • RF (Riding Freedom) group complete chp. 3 and questions due tomorrow

Math ~ Triangle WS complete triangles B,C,D,E (measure the interior angles of the triangles)

SS ~ complete textboxes on pages 84-85

Today's Objectives:
Math ~ continued Triangles....measured the interior angles of a triangle; went over HW

Reading ~ completed our Word Study book (totally completed in class through class discussion) page 19 using the prefix "out"; worked on our next Writing Menu (again, a classroom assignment);

read The Giving Tree -- we are working on inferences this week (drawing conclusions) and I am using this book to have the students draw conclusions about love, gifts, and happiness. We are working on this all week. At the end of the week, we will write about the love, gifts, and happiness the Boy received in the book and draw conclusions about our own lives and how and why we show love, happiness, etc. This is a "deep" concept for the students, but I know they can handle it and the thoughts that go with questions such as, "how do you know you are loved?" -- "can you be happy without getting gifts?"

SS ~ students read about the colonists preparing for war (text pg.84-85); went over HW

Science ~ continued classifying clouds based on their height in the atmosphere (refer to Coach book pg. 101-103)

Monday, February 8, 2010

Monday, February 8, 2009

Today's Homework:
Reading ~ Take Home Reader 20 minutes
Language Arts ~
  • ER (Esperanza Rising) group complete Passage Master
  • RF (Riding Freedom) group complete chp. 3 and questions

Math ~ text page 397 (#3-10)

SS ~ Define vocabulary from "Problems of Colonists" notes

I am going to make a point to update you, the parents, with the topics we have covered in class. I have gotten requests from many of you that you would like to help your child, but you don't know what we talked about in class. Or, more commonly, that your child "didn't learn anything", or "didn't do anything", or "doesn't know what we did" today. So, hopefully this will help you. Like I stated, I am working really hard to update you as often as I can. Please keep in mind that our days need to be flexible and can change at any moment, so please bare with me. Send me an email if you have specific questions.

Today's Objectives:

Math ~ talked about the types of triangles and classified them based on sides and angles; talked about the number of degrees in a triangle and how we came to this conclusion

Reading ~ completed our Word Study book (totally completed in class through class discussion) page 18 using the prefix "out"; worked on our next Writing Menu (again, a classroom assignment); gave time to complete their Literature assignment (see HW for Lang. Arts)

SS ~ talked about and took notes on the problems of the colonists; text pg. 82-83

Science ~ talked about and took notes on the types of clouds; classified clouds