Weather

Our big idea this unit is: Weather changes and affects the decisions we make. Right now we are asking ourselves: How does the sun affect the Earth?  The sun gives us heat and light, which are forms of energy.  That energy is essential for all living things.

Quadrilaterals

We had a short vocabulary lesson on the prefix "quart/quad."

How many quarters in a dollar? 4

How many quarters in a basketball game? 4

How many quarts in a gallon? 4

How many sides in a quadrilateral? 4

Geometry

Students are exploring different attributes of geometric shapes! Polygons are shapes that are CLOSED with STRAIGHT sides.  

Collecting

We are in the collecting phase of our nonfiction writing!  Our other writing teacher, Gail Gibbons, often reaches out to experts when researching a topic.  If you have the opportunity this weekend, try and help your student email or interview someone relevant to their topic.  Reaching out to friends and family on social media may be helpful!  We will have plenty of other collecting opportunities, so if it is not an option, no worries! Students will bring home "Questions for the Expert" today for some guidance.

Algebra

Multi-step word problems can be tricky! That's why it's super important to show work, labels and to clearly mark your answer. Being able to represent a problem in more than one way is even better!

Literacy

It may have been a short week, but we have been busy readers and writers! 

During the weeks leading up to winter break, we were immersed in the writing style of Gail Gibbons.  She is currently the other writing teacher in our rooms.  Now we are taking some of her tips to begin generating ideas for our own nonfiction writing.  We began noticing things around us in our everyday lives that we are curious or excited about.  We began thinking of some questions about these topics to help guide our research for our nonfiction writing.  We will select writing topics next week and begin collecting more information for our books!

In reading we wrapped up our study of nonfiction text structures.  The 5 structures we studied this unit are:

Description - Main Idea/Details
Comparison - Compare/Contrast
Chronological
Problem/Solution
Cause/Effect

Depending on the topic authors often choose one of these structures to organize their writing.  Reference texts can be organized in any of the structures.  Biographies and Literary Nonfiction are often organized chronologically with some problem/solution or cause/effect relationships.  Understanding how the text is organized can help students choose appropriator graphic organizers to record their learning and thinking.  

Using Facts We Know

Instead of students rotely memorizing facts, we are working very diligently to build number sense. The more students talk about numbers and understand how they can be put together and taken apart, the better number sense they will develop. As they become more automatic with their facts, they will be able to use facts they know to solve other problems. Having students explain their thinking using math vocabulary is crucial as well.  For example, when solving 7+8=15 students may show their work like this: 

7 is 5 and 2. I know 8 and 2 is 10. So 10 and 5 is 15. 

It's important to use facts we already know to help solve new facts.  Fact families prove that if you know one addition fact, then you really know 4 math facts:

5+2=7 so 2+5=7 so 7-5=2 and 7-2=5

We've spent a lot of time practicing double facts, because once those are mastered, we can apply them to near doubles.  Doubles +/-1 and Doubles +/-2 are facts you can master once you know doubles.

And finally, if you know your single doubles facts facts, then you can apply that to your double digit numbers.

Since Double 2 is 4, we know Double 20 is 40.  So we can easily solve Double 22 because 20+20=40, 2+2=4, so 40+4=44.