Week of 10.28.19

Highlights for the Week of 10/28/19
in Mrs. Bell's Class

Spelling -  NONE
Due to the shortened week and the holiday, there will be NO spelling lesson this week.

Reading - Unit 1 - "Courage"

Next week's task in reading will be to close read the fiction piece titled, Happy Birthday Dr. King. Students will work in small groups to answer text-dependent questions and to use context clues to find meanings of unknown words. They will also be creating a digital notebook of vocabulary words for the story. 

English - Capitalization & Punctuation
The use of quotation marks will be the focus of English this week. This lesson is challenging, so we will spend several sessions on this topic.

Social Studies - The Southeast
We will complete our study of the Narragansett People with a small project titled "The Narragansett Village", which will be due on 11/5. Students will draw and label a model of what a Narragansett village of the past would look like based upon what we have studied about their culture. Look for the project description sheet to come home on Monday. 

Our study of the Southeast begins with students creating a map of the region. A QUIZ on the map will be scheduled for the week of 11/4.

Science - Energy Conversions
Writing an argument about the blackout is the topic of the week. Students will be introduced to the terms "evidence" and "claims" as they apply to science. We will write our first argument on Wednesday. Below are photos of students investigating how to build a simple system. They used solar panels, wires, LED lights, buzzers, and motorized fans to build their system. They discovered that there are many forms of energy that include electrical, light, sound, motion and thermal energy.

Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) - Understanding Different Perspectives

Understanding that people can have different perspectives about other people, places, and situations is the topic for our morning meeting this week. Perspective-taking is a central component of empathy. My goal is for students to be able to identify differing perspectives in given scenarios and to generate prosocial responses in which different perspectives could cause a conflict.

Mrs. Bell's Math Class- Unit 2 - Adding & Subtracting Fractions
A Fraction addition and subtraction CHECKPOINT is scheduled for Monday, 10/28. Students should review their notes and workbook pages to prepare for the quiz.

We will also learn about unit rates and how fractions are ratios. Students spent a lot of time during this past week learning about multiplying whole numbers by fractions and then applying that skill to a problem-solving scenario. Below are pictures of partners working together to create a poster of a trail that had a number of stops located at fractional segments. Be sure to ask your child about the "River Trail" activity!

During the month of October, we have been studying equivalencies of money, fractions, and decimals in Number Corners. To "mix things up" a bit, we will sometimes sing the numbers on the calendar to the tune of The 12 Days of Christmas. We have some very talented musicians/mathematicians in our class! I'm hoping that the following video of us singing will work properly, but if it doesn't I have also posted it to Google Classroom. Enjoy...

FYI...
10/29 - 10/30 - Parent/Teacher Conferences

11/1 - No School 

11/4 - No School - Teachers' Institute

The Halloween celebration will be on Thursday, 10/31. Students will change into their costumes at 12:50, and the parties will begin at 1:00. The traditional PV parade will begin at 1:55. Students must be able to put on their Halloween costume in 5-10 minutes by themselves. Fourth grade will have designated classrooms for girls to change in and for boys. They will NOT be allowed to change in the bathroom. No props that resemble a weapon should be brought to school. THANK YOU to all the parents who are helping to make this a special afternoon for our classroom!

Mrs. Karen Bell