Weekly Update

Math 

We have been working on elapsed time this week.  This is tricky for them, but we have learned some helpful strategies to help us with this!  Here is a look at a student's notebook:

In the first example for Strategy #1, the student did not have to borrow any minutes because the hours and minutes were both bigger on the top.  In the second example, she had to borrow 60 minutes from the hour side so that the top number was bigger than the bottom number.  To keep her work neat, she rewrote the problem off to the side as 5:75-3:35.  The answer was 2 hours and 40 minutes.  We took the problem further by finding that the time for the activity in the first example took 40 minutes longer than the activity in the second example.

Strategy #2 was a little trickier for us.  In the first example, we were able to count up on our fingers or in our head from 7:30 AM to 3:30 PM because the minutes were the same.  We found that 8 hours was the elapsed time.   However, in the second example, we decided to make a chart to calculate the elapsed time step by step since the time started at 7:30 AM and ended at 4:15 PM.  First, we calculated the hours from 7:20 to 3:20.  We wrote 8 hours on the left side of the chart, and 3:20 on the right side.  Next, we counted up from 3:20 to 4:00 and got 40 minutes.  Then, we counted up from 4:00 to 4:15 and got another 15 minutes.  Finally, we added up the times on the left side of the chart.  We found that 8 hours and 55 minutes had passed from the start to the end of the activity.  

Students can rewatch the StudyJams video here for the elapsed time subtraction strategy!  Don't forget to click on the "Watch Out!" tab of the video for borrowing seconds and minutes!  As always, there are many practice resources and games on the Moodle that students can use at home as well.  

Finally, we reviewed our time facts.  Take a look at this notebook:

We have a quiz on these facts and a few telling time and elapsed time questions next Tuesday.

Reading

We continued our Fiction Unit with discussions of characters, setting, conflict, plot, and the theme of fiction stories.  In reading groups, we made a fun flip book to give us practice in identifying these story elements in the books that we read! 

Writing 

Realistic fiction stories can be hard to write, but we are doing great!  Mrs. Leighton is very proud of the writers in her classroom!  This week, we focused on the plot of our stories, using story arcs.  We discussed that 1) the stories need to be realistic, and 2) the stories need to have a believable problem and solution.  Once our story arcs were complete, we started to write our story scenes.  We had lots of share time this week too.  We love hearing our classmates' drafts, especially because we get many good ideas from them!  We took our Spelling Tests today, so we will get a new word sort next week.  

Elayna sharing her awesome story arc!

Science

This week we reviewed energy pyramids, food chains, and food webs with a couple short StudyJams and BrainPOP videos.  Towards the end of the week, we took a break from our interactive workbook to start our biome quilt!  We are using library books as well as the internet to research biomes such as the Taiga, Tundra, Dessert, Grasslands, Wetlands, etc. We are finding out about the climate, parts of the world to find the biome, and the plants and animals that live in the biome.  Each student includes this information on their own quilt square, and the squares will be put together to make a class quilt.  We are having fun learning about Science!  We will finish these up early next week, and then close our Ecosystems Unit with a study of fossils.  The tentative Ecosystems Test date is next Friday, but look in students' assignment books and the "Homework" tab for the confirmed test date next week.

Other Important Info.

If you have not yet signed up for Parent-Teacher Conferences, please do so.  The time slots are filling up fast!  Next Friday is a half day, with dismissal at 11:50.  Please make sure that your child knows how they are getting home.  Believe it or not, Friday is also the last day of First Quarter!  This year, report cards will be emailed home on the 24th and 25th.  As always, please continue to go through Flyer Folders with your child every Tuesday and Friday as important notes, information, and graded work comes home.  Tests with stamps on them need to be signed and returned.  Finally, I have extended the October Scholastic Book Orders due date to Monday for a few students that forgot to bring in orders.