Next Math Unit, Writing Performance Task, and Motion Experiments

Friday, January 13, 2017

Dear Parents and Guardians,

Phew! We were busy this week! We finished a math unit, did an entire writing unit, and experimented with force and motion! Unfortunately, we have sad news too. Today is our classmate, Lilliana’s, last day. We had a ceremony to say good bye and we will miss her!

Math

On Thursday, the students took their unit 2 math test on multiplication and division (this is actually our third unit test). I will be sending the tests home next week for you to sign and return or keep.

Our next unit is on measurement, time, and data. Any opportunities that you have to measure the length or weight of items at home is a great way to practice. If you have analog clocks at home, start telling time together and thinking about what time it will be in 1 hour, 3 hours, etc.

Writing

This week we did a narrative “performance task” intended to help students start to get ready for their first MCAS this year. The practice was mostly done together to help students understand strategies for taking such a test. We started the week by reading articles and watching a video. Students learned about taking notes on what they are reading or seeing.

Next, we answered questions based on the texts. Lastly, students wrote fiction stories about what they learned from the articles: a story about taking a safari in Africa. One important thing for students to practice with these tasks is making sure to answer the question carefully and showing that they read and understood what they read. We practiced using a lot of details from the articles to show that we read and understood them.

Science

As a class, we designed an experiment to test if a toy car would go farther on one rug or another. As many students hypothesized, friction slowed the car down on the fluffier rug. Now students are designing their own experiments. Find out what motion question your child is designing an experiment to test. Students have been learning about how to test only one variable, how to do multiple trials, how to use tools to measure their results, and how to write a lab report. I have been amazed by their creativity!

Reminder: book orders are due next Friday.

Have a nice weekend,

Jessica Harwood