April 29- May 3, 2019

Reading- Our reading has continued to coincide with our unit on westward expansion. We learned to zero in on the specific vocabulary that authors use so that we could do the same thing on our writing. We continue to work hard to be good note-takers so that we can use the new information in our writing.

Writing- We thought like historians this week as we continued to revise our flash drafts on westward expansion. We grew ideas by thinking about how the geography might have affected the lives of the people during that time by looking at a map and using phrases like, "They probably thought...", "If must have been...", "I am realizing...". Also, we used a timeline to help us connect a few of the events within our writing. At the end of the week, we were redrafting, being sure to use a formal, teaching tone by taking out contractions and using expert language!

Science- Students had the opportunity to answer some of our questions from the driving question board that we created through the Padlet app, such as, what are the bird doing on the hippos back? What do the birds eat off the hippos? and do the hippos like that the birds are on them? Questions were answered by making further observations through videos in class. Students compared, shared, and made claims about the information they collected. They then revised their original models of the oxpeckers (tick birds) and hippopotamuses as a group! We also started a pretty hilarious book about a hippo named Amos who gets a tick bird of his own.

Math- Students spent the week having fun with word problems! We are practicing writing equations to represent the problem. We have reviewed how to round and estimate in order to see if the answer we got was reasonable. There was an opportunity for creativity as we wrote our own word problems for given equations! Students used problems we have already solved to help them find patterns they can use as they write their own. We will continue to practice writing equations as we move through the unit. 

Social Studies -  Students have been excited to learn about the causes of the American Revolution!    We have watched videos, played games, taken notes, and should be more than ready for our test on Monday, May 6, 2019.    Be sure to ask your student about the unfair taxation they faced in class today!!     The King was taxing them for things like having siblings at home and for having laces on their shoes.  They had to pay with M and Ms and many students were not to happy about how unfair it was!   Of course, this helped us to understand how unfair some of the taxes were that the colonist had to pay leading up to the Revolution.