Dear Families, Literacy: The 3-5 grade will be starting a new IB Unit on with the Central Idea: Interconnectedness of human structures can impact society’s perspective and promote or deny social justice and equal opportunities. As part of this unit, students will be studying about social justice and reading biographies of people who have made a difference in this area. Our lines of inquiry will include:
We plan to end this unit with a biography wax museum where students will dress up as a chosen figure and present their research on that person. Math: Third graders will continue to work on multiplication and division over the next few weeks. We are working toward the goal of having all third graders fluent with the multiplication and division facts through 12. Please encourage your student to review his/her facts at home! Fourth graders are working with many geometrical concepts. This unit has a lot of vocabulary! Students are using protractors to measure angles and are making conjectures about the sum of angle measures in various shapes. We will continue in this unit for a couple more weeks. Fifth graders just finished a unit on multiplying and dividing larger numbers. We will be working to multiply and divide fractions and decimals in the coming weeks. We will also review how to find the volume of a three dimensional figure. IXL Students have all received usernames and passwords that will follow them for the next year. We encourage students to work on this site every now and then, for 10-20 minutes at a time, at home. We do not want students to be spending lots of time in front of screens. However, the activities on the site are directly aligned to our teaching standards and provide instantaneous feedback. So, if there are times at home and you hear, "What can I do?" or "I'm bored!", feel free to encourage IXL! There are also times we are working to practice various skills in the classroom using the site. Student Led Conferences: Students will begin preparing for Student Led Conferences. You will be receiving a note will a list of available conference times. Please fill out any times that work for you and email the times or send the form back to school as soon as possible. Friday, March 9, has been set aside as a Student Led Conference day. There is no school for students on March 9. The students will be preparing their work for this conference and practicing their presentation. We hope that you will be able to make the scheduled conference times. Science 3/4: In their cause and effect unit, third and fourth graders have been focusing on how natural hazards and weather events effect people and the classwork focused on landslides. We will extend this study into investigations into erosion. Students will brainstorm how water, wind, ice and vegetations effect erosion, and plan some experiments with the stream table into the effects of these variables. Science 5th: Fifth and sixth graders are finishing their invention projects that focus on minimizing humans' impact on the environments. They have engineered some great ideas for combating some of the problems we humans create for our home planet. They will move into a new unit on scale, proportion and quantity that will focus on constructing a scientific explanation based on evidence from rock strata for how the geologic time scale is used to organize Earth's 4.6 billion year old history. They will also use data to determine the scale properties of objects in the solar system. Shakespeare Documentary Launch: This past year 4th and 5th graders had the wonderful opportunity to participate in Shakespeare, It's Elementary! Throughout the weeks they documented much of the success. On Thursday from 5:30-7:30 they are celebrating the documentary and will play it while also having fun. All are welcome, but 4th and 5th graders may see themselves in the movie! The following link will bring you to a video we created about the Pinball Wizard After School club: www.wevideo.com/view/1081400157 ***Mrs. Canales included a lot of important information in her email update today. Here is a link to the school website with the newsletter and attachments: www.acsdvt.org/salisbury We look forward to seeing you in the coming weeks with conferences! Upcoming: Friday, March 2-Instrument lessons Thursday, March 8-ACT 1 Parent Night, Student Led Conference available slots Friday, March 9-Conference Day, No school for students
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The band students performed for classmates and families last week! Mrs. Morrissey's students teacher, Stephen Bissainthe is back from teaching at an orphanage in Haiti! Students are thrilled to have him joining for the next few months. Students will be referring to him as Mr. B! This week students will be working to tie up any loose ends on various projects, writing assignments, math units and books. The slideshow below includes many, varied pictures. Enjoy! Third Grade Math: Third Graders have started a new math unit. Our focus will be on multiplication , division and area. You will find a unit overview below. Students should continue to work on fluency with the multiplication and division facts. There is excellent fact practice on IXL! www.mathlearningcenter.org/sites/default/files/documents/family/PAR-BR3-U5.pdf Ms. Foster's Literacy: We are finishing up our combined science/literacy unit. Third and fourth graders have become very interested in the human impact on the natural world. As part of this study, students have written opinion pieces on the use of straws. Please talk to your student about this issue! Upcoming:
Tuesday, February 13-Recycled Instruments during music Wednesday, February 14-Author Skype, Melinda Long and students are invited to bring in Valentines for classmates Friday, February 16-Pinball Wizard Club share (Time to be determined) Next Week: Winter Break |