Hope you have been enjoying our sunny spring weather and the exciting things happening in our community this time of year! :)
We are still working diligently at school wrapping up, sharing what we've learned and showing what we know. Thanks for your help in supporting and encouraging your student during our CRCT testing days. They seemed confident and calm each morning and were thrilled to have a piece of candy to get them going :)
As I'm typing this today, they are staying focused and showing what they know on their Math MAP test. We had one-on-one conferences this morning to talk about the importance of this test (not to stress them but to give them purpose) and just chat with them about how they are feeling with each subject as well as going over their scores from this year and determining a 'goal' for their end of the year score to show their progress and how much they have learned this year. They all seemed confident and were smiling as we entered so that's a good sign! :)
As for our lessons in class, we are continuing to learn new material everyday and review as well. In Math we are continuing with our geometry unit. We have wrapped up the first half and will take a test tomorrow to assess it. It will cover the vocabulary/skills mentioned in my last post. I'm also including some screenshots of our lesson practice so you can see how we have been solving for finding unknown angles. We have worked with both circular (360 degree) protractors as well as traditional 180-degree protractors to solve. Once we got the hang of protractors (how to line them up, which set of numbers to use, which direction to read, etc) we started solving without them; using what we had learned about benchmark angles (90, 180, 270, 360 degree markings) to help us solve for the unknown(s) in acute, right, obtuse, straight and even reflex angles. They've done great with this!!!
In our ELA/SS lessons we have been working with the Abolitionist and Suffrage Movements. We started the term with the important women (info in previous post) and have since started a class read aloud, "The Hope Chest". This story is set in the time of the suffrage movement (the book opens in 1918) and is told from the perspective of a 10-year old girl from Pennsylvania who is looking for her older sister who has left home to fight for women's rights. We've met many interesting characters along the way as we are reviewing character traits, main idea, summarizing and inferencing using details and examples/support from the text. Each student is keeping a response journal for the book that we are closing with and sharing from. It's been a great read so far (we are currently though Chapter 6)! Here are some snapshots of a few of our note-taking sessions:
In our more direct SS lessons we have been talking about the right to vote; what does it mean, who should it include, should everyone get an opportunity? How would the voting process change/be affected if only certain groups of people got to vote on things that affect everyone? We put this in to practice with our Field Day Team Name/Catch Phrase. The class made a list of 10 catch phrases that affect us all - it would go on all of our shirts, banners, posters, and we would be chanting this phrase on field day defining us as a team.... but only the boys were allowed to vote on it. "WHAT!?!?!" They cried out!!! "Thats's not fair!!!" So we divided up in the room - one side for those who agree with my decision and those who didn't. Interestingly we had a 24 vs 3 debate. 3 boys were in favor for a 'boy vote' only! What a debate we had that day!!! :) Moving forward we will be wrapping up the suffrage movement with a reading of Sojourner Truth's famous speech "Ain't I a Woman" and working through vocabulary, context, text-dependent questions, etc... Next week we will move into Core Democratic Values and the students will be learning what these are and how they affect them personally as a citizen of the United States. They will also be writing an essay on the 4-5 that they feel they most closely relate to/feel most passionate about for themselves. :)
So I've just realized I've typed you a novel here! My apologies! I'll stop here and give you another update for next week's skills/lessons soon. Check out the "Important Dates" tab up top for end-of-the-year dates (some may still be added...) Have a great week and a Happy Mother's Day weekend!!!
PS. Thanks for the field day shirts and fabric paint materials! We will be working on getting those ready in class next week for Field Day next Friday. Also, thanks for the sweet cards and gifts for Teacher Appreciation; I'm so lucky to be surrounded by these sweet children every day :)
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