We had a great week back from winter break and got right to work!

In writing we continue to work on pulling apart the short story that we will be writing our literary essay on.  This week we focused on the character in the story and found a part where they said or did something.  We recorded this on a page in our notebooks and pretended we were our character and wrote as if we were telling the rest of the story from their view.  The thought prompts have also been helping us write longer about the story, growing our ideas as we go and thinking deeper about the text.

The new unit that we started in reading workshop is an author study.  Each student came up with a list of a few authors they wanted to learn more about.  They were placed into a book club with other students who were also interested in studying the same author.  In our class we have 6 different clubs that have been reading or possibly re-reading books that their author wrote.  There are a few things that have helped us when we are trying to get to know more about an author.  We can stop and jot a part where we felt surprised, excited, sad, or maybe a part that made us laugh out loud. Another way to become an expert on an author is to ask what the characters are like, what the setting is like, and what the themes are in the story.  On Thursday, students created charts about the characters across their books and the similarities and differences among them.

We began topic 11 in math this week, Fraction Equivalence and Ordering.  We revisited learning about factors and multiples, and learned about prime and composite numbers.  We used fraction strips to help support our learning of equivalent fractions.  A number line is another tool that can be used to help name equivalent fractions.

We are wrapping up our floating and sinking unit this week.  We learned that although the weight of different objects does not change, it appears to change when these objects are submerged under water.  We weighed all the objects that we tested in the beginning of the unit when they were suspended in the air, partially submerged, and fully submerged. We also investigated the difference between salt water and tap water, and discussed why objects that sink in tap water will float in salt water...because the salt water is heavier!

On Thursday we met with our buddy class and decorated some really neat hats in honor of Dr. Seuss' birthday and Read Across America Week coming up.

Enjoy your weekend!