My math class- We reviewed the value of digits in a number, practiced multiplying by the powers of 10, learned 3 ways to write numbers in expanded form, and practiced multiplying using partial-products and U.S. traditional multiplication. We'll continue practicing multiplication this week...2-digit numbers by 2-digit numbers.
Social Studies- After taking a quiz on important mountain ranges, the kids learned how to read a compass rose, how to locate places on earth using latitude & longitude, and how to read a map key/legend. This week the kids will learn about time zones and will begin a mapping project where they'll apply all of the map skills taught in this unit. They'll sketch a rough draft of an island map of their own and use it to create a final copy for a grade.
Language Arts- The kids took the unit 7 spelling assessment on Friday. We will not start unit 8 until Oct. 19th because of the short week this week. We continued to study "strong" adjectives which carried over into writing where students wrote "hamburger" paragraphs (top bun=intro. sentence, meat/toppings=details, bottom bun=closing sentence) describing a monster picture drawn and inspired by a monster-lib activity.
Whole-group reading- In our unit on creating images, students practiced sketching visuals made while reading different texts...they recognized how descriptive words in text creates strong images while reading. The students also practiced identifying the tone & mood that the author tries to create through dialogue. We'll continue studying tone & mood this week.
Small-group reading- All groups have finished reading two non-fiction instructional books and are now reading realistic fiction-based novels.
