Wednesday, January 27th

Today in readers' workshop, students continued learning about interpreting texts and backing their interpretations with evidence from the text.  Students read a poem from the book, The Way A Door Closes, and worked on interpreting based on specific questions and quotes from the text. 

Students continued to work on their book club projects.  The students are really enjoying these projects.  Ask your child about their project.

Today in math, students completed unit 4 BA and tomorrow they will complete a cumulative test over chapters 1 - 3.

Homework:
- Read 30 minutes
- study for math BA

Reminders: 
-Camp paperwork due February 12

Tuesday

Students are continuing to finish their Book club projects. The Mastermind's group finished their movie trailer today.

Click here to view

Homework:
-30 minutes of reading
-math review

Reminders:
-Planners/signatures to be checked tomorrow

Friday

Students are working on a book club project. One group decided to create a 'movie' trailer about their book: 39 Clues: Maze of Bones.

Click here to view

Thursday; January 21

Today in writers' workshop, students are working on adding reasons to their opinion writing.  They are learning how to use precise language to add their reasons to their essay.  Your child self selected a topic to write about (for example, should there be more PE time during the school week?)

In readers' workshop, all students finished their book clubs. They are working in teams to work on a series of activities. Some groups are creating board games based on their book, while other groups are using the iPads to create book/movie trailers.  Ask your child what project they are working on based on their book club book.

In math, we are learning about adding and subtracting decimals. Today's focus was more on subtraction.  Their homework is mostly subtraction of decimals.


Thank you parents for coming to the camp meeting on Tuesday.  I was very excited to see so many families.  I'm sorry if I didn't get a chance to talk with you, but if any questions regarding camp arise please email me.

Homework:
- 30 minutes of reading
- Home Link 4.12

Reminders:
- Camp paperwork due February 12

Thursday

Students are working hard to learn more about opinion writing. Today in writers' workshop, students learned strategies for writing an introduction to an opinion essay. For example, after stating their opinion students can ask questions, state a strong fact, introduce the topic, etc.  Your child practiced writing the introduction to this topic: Should rats be pets?  Click here to watch the video clip I showed to them prior to writing.


During readers' workshop, we are finishing our first round of book clubs.  The students have been doing an awesome job learning about conversational moves and writing notes about our reading.  Our new book club round will begin as soon as all groups are finished (next week).

In math, students graphed ordered pairs and interpreted graphed data.  

Homework:
- Home Link 4.9
- 30 minutes of reading

Reminders:
- January 19th: WLW concert field trip
- January 19th: Parent meeting about camp and graduation 6 pm -WLE

Wednesday

Students took the math portion of the iReady test this morning. A majority of the class has finished and we will return to our normal schedule.  

For math, students continued their work with ordered pairs and writing coordinates on a graph.

Homework:
-Study Link 4.8
-30 minutes of reading

Reminders:
-Tuesday, January 19th camp/graduation parent meeting @ 6 PM
-Tuesday, January 19th trip to Walled Lake Western for concert

Tuesday

Today during our literacy block, students took the iReady reading diagnostic test. This adaptive test gives me information to best help your child. By dynamically adapting based on student response patterns, adaptive assessments are able to derive large amounts of information from a limited number of test items. This allows the assessments to more accurately and more efficiently pinpoint students’ needs as compared to traditional fixed-form tests. For more information about the iReady diagnostic click here. 

In math, students are continuing their work with coordinate grids. Students played a math game that was similar to Battleship.  They are getting more comfortable finding the ordered pair on a graph.

Homework:
-30 minutes of reading
-Study Link 4.5

Reminders:
-Planners checked tomorrow
-Tuesday, January 19th camp/graduation parent meeting @ 6 PM
-Tuesday, January 19th trip to Walled Lake Western for concert

Happy Friday

Today, your child finished the story called Your Questions for Author Here in readers' workshop.  We focused on rereading strategies to ensure full meaning making.

In writers' workshop, we focused on how author's of opinion writing use different types of evidence.  We read an opinion essay regarding Too Much TV.  Students identified evidence within the text.

In math, students continue their work on decimals up to the thousandths place. Today's learning target was rounding decimals.

Homework:
-Study Link 4.5
-30 minutes of reading

Reminders:
-January 19 at 6 pm Camp Meeting

Thursday, January 7th

In readers' workshop, we are continuing our work with close reading.  Today we learned that readers need to pay close attention to the point in a story where the character's actions or thoughts clearly contradicts previous patterns.  Often this suggests a change or new insight into the character.  We used the story "Your Questions for Author here" for this new work.

In writers' workshop, your child is learning more about opinion writing by focusing on reasons.  Now that students are writing stronger claims/position statements, we moved forward by thinking and writing about reasons to validate our positions.  Students are going to learn more about this tomorrow as well.

During math, students are ordering decimals up to the thousandths place. They played a math game called Decimal Top-it; it can be found on this website .  

In science, students are working together in a ramp investigation. By placing a ball bearing at different spots on a ruler, students are noticing that the ball travels different lengths.  They are recording this information in their science notebook. Then at then end of class, they are using their data to make the ball travel a mystery distance that I give them.  Today students were trying to get the ball to travel 72.5 cm.  By using their data, they have one opportunity to hit the mystery number.  Many groups were very close or right on the number.

Homework:

-30 minutes of reading 

-Study Link 4.4

Reminders:

-permission slip to Western due tomorrow

-Camp meeting: January 19th at 6:00 in the media center 

December 6, 2016

In readers' workshop, students began reading a story called Your Questions for Author here.  We are working on close reading strategies looking deeply at the text for inferences, questions, and finally determining importance.  Students are learning to highlight, write notes in the margin, and rewrite parts that seem confusing. The students are effectively reading this difficult piece using these important strategies.  

In writers' workshop, your child is learning more about opinion writing.  We worked on varying their claim sentences based on their feelings about a certain topic.  For example, students wrote claims with words such as strongly disagree when writing about extending the school day, however when students wrote claims about cell phones in schools many wrote they slightly agree.  

In math, your child is continuing to learn about decimals into the thousandths place. Today's focus was on expanded notation.  (i.e.   0.345 = 0.3 + 0.04 + 0.005)

Homework:
- 30 minutes of reading
- Study Link 4.3

Reminders:
-Little Caesar Pizza kit fundraiser
-permission slip to the Western concert is due Friday, January 8th
- Camp and Graduation meeting after school on January 19th at 6 pm in the media center (letter will go home tomorrow)

Happy New Year!

Students were excited (and very tired)  to begin the day learning.  Our new student teacher, Ms. Berlin, joined us today. She will be with us until April.  She sent home a letter introducing her.

In Readers' Workshop, students are learning about opinion writing. We read a book called I Wanna Iguana.  We focused on opinions and reasoning.  

In Writers' Workshop, students learned more about opinion writing. We talked about their favorite activity during recess.   Students explained their opinions and backed up their opinions with reasons.

In math, students worked with decimals up to the thousandths place.  

Homework:

-30 minutes of reading

-Study Link 4.1