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Math~ We have completed the geometry standards. The students have done lots of practice and have had the opportunity to apply the knowledge through problem solving. Thus, we are ready for the test. The test will be on Tuesday after a review on Monday. The students will need to be able to compute the perimeter and area of rectangles, squares, triangles and parallelograms. They will also need to compute the volume of rectangular prisms. The tough part seems to be knowing which label goes with each computation. Students will be allowed to use the formula sheets we developed in class for the test. Once the test is done, we will move to chapter 7, which is the first of two fraction chapters. The students will learn the rules of divisibility this week, work with prime and composite numbers and find the greatest common factors of numbers. That will lead to reducing fractions.
We will complete the reading
of Number the Stars this week. The students have done
a great job in discussions, and their written work is showing
good progress of late. The book will be finished on Tuesday,
and the final project will be assigned on Wednesday. There will
be three parts to that with differing due dates. The vocabulary
quiz for the book will be on Thursday. All of the words have
been developed in class at this point. The final district benchmark
test will be given on Wednesday. It will cover language arts
skills at a fourth grade level, and it is a good warmup for the
STAR tests. The spelling unit will focus
on the prefix ad- and its many spellings. The test will
be on Friday, but there is no DOL test this week. We will continue to work on the redwood project through the week. We should complete all the note taking this week, and begin rough drafting the report by early next week.
The students are working on an Internet research sheet about plants, they are reading an article about photosynthesis, and we are examining cells of leaves under a microscope. The students will then see a video called "Energy Origins" and that will bring together all the ideas of photosynthesis. We will construct a flow chart of the process of photosynthesis this week to cement the concept. The students will also examine embryos in kidney bean seeds and return to the plants that have been growing in the classroom. We should read an article called "Trees Alive" by the end of the week which will pull together many of the ideas we have been developing in class.
Social Studies~ We had a great discussion on several topics around the decisions at the convention last week. This week, we should complete lesson 3 of chapter 7. The main idea is how California was admitted as a state during a time where the issue of slavery divided the country. We will then look at how the new constitution changed the lives of Californians.
Notes/Reminders~ A packet of information about Westminster Woods will be coming home on Wednesday. There are a couple of forms that need to be returned to school. Please send those back to school by Friday. Thank you~
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