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| It's spring! |
MCAS (Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System)
I shared the work we are doing for MCAS practice at our conference. For the ELA (English Language Arts) section of the test, students read and answer questions based on a variety of texts. The Practice Test we are using is the same format as the test they will take so it will look familiar when they take the test later in April. As I told the class, they can't "study" for these tests. All I am asking them to do it get a good night sleep, eat breakfast, and try their best.
MATH
We have completed our unit on addition and subtraction with regrouping. We will continue to practice these skills for the remainder of the year. Our next unit is fractions!
We started on Friday with a lesson on numerator and denominator. We then played a game called Fraction Five in a Row in which students roll a die and match that digit with either a numerator or denominator of a fraction on their game board. Winners had to complete five fractions in a row. It was a fan favorite. The nice part is that it looked at fractions of a whole, a set, and on a number line.
Games are a great way to reinforce skills. We will continue with this unit for the next few weeks. Our work will look at identifying fractions, comparing fractions, and recognizing equivalent fractions.
SCIENCE
Have you heard about Ug and Grock? They're kind of a big deal in Room 102 right now! They're cavemen and they needed our help. We have to help them solve problems. The first problem we had to help them with was how to get apples from high in the top of a tree. It was a challenge because the tree was too hard to climb because the branches were too high up.
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| Caveman problems... |
They had a log and rock that they found nearby and the students had to help them find a way to use them. The suggestions went from banging the rock against the tree to catapulting one of the men up into the tree. We then had a suggestion to make a "see saw" with the rock and log to lift one of the men. That was a great idea, but I told them that poor Grock, the smaller one, was afraid of heights. How could they lift Ug (who has more mass) up? They figured out that moving the rock would help them lift the heavier person. They found out that they created a lever. It consists of a bar and a fulcrum. It is the first of the six simple machines we will investigate.
The next day we used what we learned about Ug and Grock's task to manipulate a lever. We used gram weights and replicated the scenario of lifting something with more mass. Students were asked to label the load, force, bar, and fulcrum on their work.
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| Ellie, Grace and Cooper experimented with their lever to lift a 20 gram weight. |
Stay tuned to see what Ug and Grock need help with next!
ELA (English Language Arts)
We have been reading about the Puritans together as a class. The students are HORRIFIED by the punishments of these early colonists. Poor Anne Hutchinson was banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony for sharing her own thoughts about religion and God. She and her family (of 14 children) moved to Rhode Island and later to New York. There they were killed by Native Americans, all except one child.
The Puritans arrived 10 years after the Pilgrims. They were a larger group and had heard of the troubles of the pilgrims, so they were better prepared. John Winthrop, formerly a wealthy lawyer in England, led a group of close to 1,000 men, women and children on 16 ships to America. They first settled in Salem, and later spread out to other areas including Roxbury, Watertown, and Boston.
The Puritans left England for fear of religious persecution. Yet, when they arrived and settled their own colony, they had harsh punishments for those they felt disobeyed their laws. The class was mesmerized when reading about punishments such as the pillory, or branding. The one that got the most reaction was for the poor people whose punishment was to have a hole bored through their tongue!
We are also spending some time looking at character traits and theme as I present a read aloud. Students have been doing a great job identifying theme in the books we are reading. We recently read Chicken Sunday by Patricia Polacco and students gave evidence from the text to show themes of courage, teamwork and kindness. This work will continue for the next few weeks as they turn to writing about themes in books we share.
We have also started our newest daily read aloud A Cricket in Times Square by George Selden. Written in 1960, it is the story of a boy, a mouse, a cat, and cricket, and it revolves around a news stand in the subway station of Times Square. We left off on Friday with Tucker Mouse sleeping in Chester Cricket's new pagoda house. He feels like the Emperor of China as he sleep on and under dollar bills. But, wait until students find out what happens on Monday!
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| What could be better than this? Tucker Mouse's idea of heaven! |
ELA also includes writing and spelling and cursive. So here is an update on those topics as well.
We have finished up our NON FICTION writing. Students will read the work of some of their class mates this week and comment on their writing.
In spelling, students did a good job identifying the correct homophone on our test on Friday. We made a pretty extensive list of homophones earlier in the week.
We are making our way through the CAPITAL letters in cursive. Students get very excited when we get to THEIR letter.
Final thoughts...
- Use our Tweets to ask pointed questions about school.
- I saw you were doing science today. What did you learn?
- How's your non-fiction writing looking?
- What was that math game you played?
- Students should be completing homework primarily with independence at this point in the year.
- Is your child packing their own backpack and snack? Now might be a good time to start this practice.
- For those of you looking for book suggestions, try Good Reads as a resource. Or, one of my favorite resources is Jim James at Park Street Books.
Thanks for reading!
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