Welcome to February and Happy Groundhog Day! Here in Room 20, we've been enjoying snow days, writing essays, thinking deeply about characters, and learning about our country and region. Read about more details below!
In reading, we're continuing our study of character traits, both with our at-home reading (see the links for the Character Trait bookmark and chart on the right) and with our in-school reading. We just started a new book, A Cricket in Times Square, and we're working hard on choosing specific and accurate character traits that we can back up with evidence from the book. Check out our character trait posters below. We'll be adding more to them in the next couple of weeks as we finish the book!
In writing, our essays are really starting to take shape! We worked on collecting evidence for our three reasons in the forms of mini stories and parallel lists of examples. We wrote mini stories to illustrate one time when each of our reasons was true. Mini stories help give the reader a specific example of one time that the reason was true for the author. Parallel lists, like the ones we observed in Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech, are powerful for giving lots of specific examples for the reader to see the many ways the reason was true. Now that we're done collecting our mini stories and parallel lists, we're starting to draft our essays! Hopefully we'll finish up this week and enjoy a publishing party soon - keep an eye out for pictures!
In math, we're still studying fractions. We're working on adding and subtracting fractions with like (same) denominators. We've learned how to simplify our answers to fraction addition and subtraction problems, how to use number lines to show how how to add and subtract fractions, and how to solve for "variables" or unknown values in fraction addition and subtraction problems. Next week, we'll be learning more about mixed numbers and improper fractions and we'll take a Topic 12 test before vacation!
We wrapped up our heredity unit and took our test and now we're onto our next big social studies unit on the regions of the United States! We started our study of the US with the Northeast, which also happens to be the region in which we live. We have a lot of experiences in the Northeast - some of us brought in postcards and pictures of places we've vacationed or seen with our families and friends. So far, we've identified the Northeast states, capitals, and postal abbreviations, learned about the important geographical features of the Northeast (like how glaciers shaped the land and some important landforms and bodies of water), identified major natural resources, goods, and services (economy) of the Northeast, and described the climate of the Northeast. We'll be wrapping up the Northeast next week and moving onto the Southeast after vacation!
We've done some great technology work with our mix-it-up friends in Room 21! We created short Google Presentations with a mixed-up partner about a specific Canada or Mexico research topic and presented them to each other using clear speaking voices. It was cool to learn about so many different topics, like the Northern Lights, Day of the Dead, bullfighting, and Canadian sports! Looking forward to creating more presentations soon!
As we kick off February, we're looking forward to enjoying a special "party-in-a-bag" snack on Friday, 2/13 to celebrate Valentines Day with Room 20 friends! If anybody is interested in exchanging valentines, please use the class list to be sure every classmate receives a valentine. This is, of course, optional!
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