Class News: Week of Oct. 10th

 

We will continue expanding on our knowledge of place value to help us understand concepts throughout our study of arithmetic.  Last Thursday, we began studying multiplication and using our knowledge of place value to multiply by tens, hundreds, and thousands.  Example: 30x5=150, 300x5=1,500, 3,000x5=15,000. We will be using the area model/partial products strategy, the distributive property and knowledge of basic multiplication facts to help us multiply in Chapter 3.	In our study of Weather, we have discussed clouds and how they can be used to predict the weather, including cirrus, cumulus, and stratus clouds.  We have also discussed weather instruments (such as anemometers, weather/wind vanes, rain gauges, and thermometers) and how they can be used to determine wind speed/direction, temperature, and the amount of precipitation.  This week, we will begin wrapping up our discussion of weather with a focus on explaining regional climate using long term weather conditions.  Our Test on Weather will be Friday, Oct. 14th.
In Reading, we have talked about how we make inferences beyond the text/what we are reading (even in conversations).  We will read several articles and various other texts in order to continue the practice of making inferences, which will help us better understand how characters change in a story and how the cultural, historical, and social context that an author presents may affect the characters, setting, and plot.  We will also focus on how conflicts cause characters to change or revise plans while moving toward a resolution.	Our study of native groups and their interactions among similar groups of people is leading us into the study of exploration and how natives interacted with explorers.  This week, we will begin discussing reasons that explorers explored as well as the Columbian Exchange including resources, food, etc. that we introduced to/exchanged  with natives.  Eventually, this discussion will lead us into the colonies created as a result of exploration with students learning about the governments and culture of each of the colonies (French, Dutch, English, and Spanish colonies).
The explicit focus on making inferences and analyzing characters (in reading) will also help students better develop their own characters in their narrative writings.  Students have created story arcs which are like the outlines for their narrative essays.  Their story arcs include the introduction (introducing the characters, setting, etc.), rising action (telling the central idea of their narratives), climax (introducing the conflict in their narratives), falling action (explaining how the character is attempting to solve the problem in their narratives), and the resolution (explicitly stating how the conflict is resolved and explaining/synthesizing all of the character(s) actions throughout the narrative.