Weekly Reminders 2/11/13

Rockhopper Weekly Reminders
February 11- February 15


Mark Your Calendars:

Wednesday, February 13th: 5th grade “Multiplication of Fractions” Test
Friday, February 15th: Explorer Quiz in Social Studies
Friday, February 15th: Red, White, & Blue Spirit Day!
February 18th-22nd: Mid-Year Break (No School)
Monday, February 25th: School resumes
Wednesday, February 27th: I-Check, Investigation 4
Thursday, February 28th: Band Performance
Thursday, March 7th: Science Final test in Electricity and Magnetism
Friday, March 8th: Reading Contract Due!
Friday, March 8th: End of 2nd Trimester


Curriculum Flash!
Language Arts:
We make our way into Gold Rush country in Chapters 11-13 of the core literature book By the Great Horn Spoon. We’ll be making visual dictionaries of unique vocabulary of the era, we’ll differentiate between subject vocabulary in a great sorting activity, we’ll check our comprehension with probing questions about Chapter 8-11, we’ll look at and label a ship design similar to the boat featured in our reading, and we’ll continue with our perspective journals. Also, figurative language in the book in all its forms will continue to be on our radar as we read further in the text. Finally, our Friday afternoons are currently devoted to crafting our own responses to literature after receiving guidance and instruction on the necessary elements of a response.

Math:
4th grade: Onward with decimals this week, as we continue studying the conversion of fraction to decimal equivalents, ordering by value, rounding and adding and subtracting decimals. For those of you who like to review at home the supporting book materials, we’ll be focusing on Chapter 20, Lessons 1-5 during our class sessions. At the end of the week, we will apply our developing skills and challenge our thinking by practicing the process of problem-solving by working backwards! Each of us will then attempt to create our own “backward problem-solving” riddle ( :

5th grade: This week we continue with multiplication of fractions. We’ll continue to use real life examples and performance tasks to deepen students understanding of the concepts. Students will have a test on multiplication of fractions on Wednesday, and then on Thursday, we will begin using models to demonstrate how to divide fractions.

Social Studies:

Explorer Quiz Friday!!
Be sure to review your Explorers Chart and Explorer Cards!

These next few weeks of Social Studies will be dedicated to our studies of the establishment of California missions. To share their new learning, students will be engaged in multi-media activities that include character poetry, mission watercolors, and California mission “trading cards” that we will be creating using a new and exciting app on our iPads!

Science:
Our sessions of science class this week are devoted to the completion of Investigation 4: Current Attractions. Monday and Wednesday will be devoted to further work with electromagnets and the scientific method of experimentation- Part 2 of the investigation involves the testing of one design variable, the number of winds of wire on the steel rivet core. Thursday we’ll work on Part 4, which is an opportunity to investigate the effect of several other potential variable changes. We’ll have a Response Question to complete this week as well to apply our understanding of the investigation concepts, and we’ll continue to read the supporting articles in the text after we complete our hands-on work. When we return from our February break, our classes will have an I-Check on Investigation 4 on Wednesday, February 27th.

CA Trivia:
At which mission was the altar painted by an American sailor who had jumped ship?