Monday, November 7, 2011

November 7 - November 10

We’ll listen to Nights of the Pufflings.  This text  will let us dive deeper into how to read non-fiction.  On Heimaey Island, near Iceland, a community works together to help young birds called pufflings return safely to sea.
                This week’s topics:
·         Writing – Write a satisfying paragraph about the most serious problem our town is facing (character education – citizenship)
·         Comprehension – re-tell the story using a re-tell rope
·         Vocabulary –uninhabited, burrows, stranded, venture, instinctively, nestles
·         Spelling – /ar/ as in cared, airplane, everywhere

 I was very impressed with the math scores for chapter 4.  Our students are doing much better on word problems and it’s clear many have been practicing their facts!  Chapter 6 will focus on how to apply those new strategies and concepts about multiplying.  We’ll apply each concept to word problems to make the math relevant to us.  
                This week’s topics:
·         Rounding to estimate products  using mental math
·         Multiply two digit numbers


This week we’ll relate upcoming Election Day (Nov. 8th) with democracy in the Native American culture.  Our nation’s confederacy was based loosely on those cultural traditions of the Native Americans. We will also begin a Tribal Sign Project which will be completed in small groups at school.  Each group will focus closely on one particular tribe and share out the interesting information learned.