What We Are Doing in Class Week 3

In Social Studies we are wrapping up our Election unit, now that the Election is over. We wrote, published, edited , and printed our essays about which candidate we wanted to win. We also started sharing them, and writing comments about each  other's essays while eating popcorn.  Also before that we held a vote for the national presidential candidates. Some people voted for other people than Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton, such as ELIZABETH WARREN [ONE],  MICHELLE OBAMA [four],  GARY JOHNSON [ONE],  DONALD TRUMP [THIRTEEN],  HILLARY CLINTON [TWO HUNDRED!].

. Hillary won our “election” at 200 votes, compared to one, four, and thirteen. in class we were also studying how the states voted and the Electoral College. On the graph we also studied  the different shades of red and blue. We talked about how some states went back and forth. The people who watched it would tell us some things. The election unit was a very, very  jubilant.

In reading we have been taught a new entry type for our reading response.  It is called a pressure map. It is where you write about  a certain  characters  pressures. we are still reading Afternoon of the Elves. We have also been put into book club,. and  are working on creating pressure maps for Fly Away Home.

What We Are Doing In Class Week 2

We delivered our speeches and voted on Wednesday, then on Thursday we discovered it was a tie! Noah and Michael’s groups are both tied for the majority of votes, so we conducted a re-vote. The result was Noah and vice president Giulia’s victory. We are currently working on doing research for our  essays defending the candidate we want to win. Ms. Fought would like us to work on it at home, since it is due Wednesday. [the day after the election!]

In reading we started  a new unit on social issues. We have been looking for social issues in our books that we read.  Soon Ms.Greller will put us in book clubs, so we can discuss social issues together.  We have written many  reading entries and continue to do so. Following Ms. Greller’s advice, we are “reading as much as humanly possible!”

 In math we started a new unit, decimals! We started learning  place value and their meaning. We are using graphs to help us with see what the decimals look like. They are hanging up all around the classroom. We also are using charts to help us know where all the decimal points and the numbers go.  Soon we will be  multiplying  decimals!! :]

What's New This Week - 10/21

This week we have been doing many things all subjects. For example, in social studies we are working on our mock election. On Thursday we received our four-person groups, then divided positions and brainstormed for our platform. Soon we will be launching our official campaign trail alongside professionals, which should prove to be interesting. We are also developing ways to

make the experience fun for everyone by discussing and writing basic norms about mudslinging in our context as well as professionals as the walls are filling up with signs.

In writing we have a “write-away” at the beginning of every writing and social studies class. Sometimes we have hard questions like “If someone paid you $1,000 for kissing someone you have a crush on in front of the whole class, would you do it?” or “What do you imagine yourself looking like in 20 years?” Also every Tuesday and Thursday, we have a Free Write. A Free-Write is where you get to write about anything. We find Free-Writes very fun, they are also good for continuing unfinished Write-Aways.

In reading we have read and developed theories about  Chicken Sunday by Patricia Polacco.  Our read aloud is currently Afternoon Of The Elves  by Janet Taylor Lisle. We have also been learning multiple ways to write our entries like umbrella themes, secondary character influence,  setting significance, and theories. Every Monday and Wednesday we have one. We also have been getting entries from Ms. Greller to show us what they look like. We have a minimum of reading for 40 minutes, but we can read more if we want. Ms. Greller advises if we are almost done with a page or chapter, to finish it even if 40 minutes are up.We also do not have to use reading logs, WHICH IS AWESOME!!!!!

In Word Work,we are doing a range of words such as extract, brittle or consume. We are currently working on lesson 2. We have our test coming up soon. For our homework, we have one page of the section were working on. We put the words into sentences and also explore the definitions. In the classroom, we have a bulletin board where we put post-it notes if a vocabulary  word was in a book you are reading.

In math we have been learning ratio tables and two digit divisor division for this unit. Last unit we did a lot of pace value, exponents, and re-learning two digit factors in multiplication. We recently took a test for unit one, and have moved to unit 2. Our math homework is 1 page of math (just front) every night.