Really cool things are going on!

It's the end of January and there are some really exciting things going on in Room 25 this week! Here's a breakdown of the awesome activities this week:

Social Studies
Last week we finished our first-person letters as frontier children.  The students took on the point-of-view as a child traveling to the Midwest, soon after the Louisiana Purchase and Homestead Act of the 1880's, and wrote letters from their new homes.  The students did an amazing job on the writing and even got to place themselves into pioneer scenes through the technology of green screen picture editing!

This week we finish up our Midwest unit with discussions around how transportation evolved through history.  This will include note-taking, video clips, and creating a time line.

Language Arts
Word Study
This week's list consists on words using the re-, dis-, and un- prefixes.  The focus will be on spelling, synonyms/antonyms, and using the words correctly in sentences according to their parts of speech. The words for the week can be found here.

Reading
The class will wrap-up our Nonfiction Unit this week; reviewing the different text structures (Compare/Contrast, Sequence, Description, Cause/Effect, and Problem/Solution) and comparing two texts around the same subject.  The class will take an assessment on Friday to show-off everything they have learned in the last few months regarding nonfiction texts.

Writing
Last week we finally finished our Dr. King essays that showed how the students interpreted certain quoted from the "I Have a Dream" speech.  I look forward to sending these home, as well as posting them outside the classroom.  Look for these graded essays by Thursday.

This week we are writing narratives; telling a story in another character's point-of-view.  Using the story Zane and the Hurricane, student's will retell a scene from Bandy's point of view.  In case you are wondering...Bandy is the main character's dog!  This writing should be fun!

Math
Following last week's success of the Friday quiz covering adding and subtracting fractions, we are moving on this week to converting improper fractions to mixed numbers, and vise-versa.  We will also begin adding and subtracting mixed numbers!  Here are a few resources to help at home:

• Improper Fractions to Mixed Numbers (Khan Academy video)
• Mixed Numbers to Improper Fractions (Khan Academy video)
• Adding/Subtracting Mixed Numbers

Have a great week!  As always, feel free to contact me if you have any questions or concerns.