October+Weekly+Wiki

October 29-November 2, 2012

This week was totally boo-tiful!

This week in Social Studies we learned more about these different Native American regions. Here they are: the Great Plains, the Eastern Woodlands, and the Southeast culture. The Great Plains people really appreciated the buffalo because they made a lot of stuff from buffalo. Also, the Eastern Woodlands used a lot of cedar for things. Last but not least, is the Southeast region. It is a swampy land. That is what we did in Social Studies.

This week in Language Arts we continued doing retell sheets. Retell sheets are stories that we take turns reading and summarizing with our seat partner. Then on Wednesday we take a little test on the stories. We also did a writing of choice. We pick a story that we want to write. Then we write about it. It is lots of fun. We are also learning about the main idea. The main idea is often stated in a topic sentence. The topic sentence might be or the first sentence or the last sentence, or it might be in the middle of the paragraph. The rest of the paragraph is made up of supporting sentences.

This week in Math we did multiplying two digits by two digits. A lot of us thought it was easy, but some of us didn’t. We continued on our timed tests. Lots of people are getting all 50 in either under a minute and a half or some are even getting them in under a minute. Wow! We are getting fast. We are also doing daily reviews. They are reviews of skills we have done before, like division, subtraction, multiplication, and rounding. Those are lots of fun!

This week we had our Halloween Party. We decorated donuts, ate them, ate apples with caramel and had milk or cider to drink. We also watched a movie during the party called __Scooby Doo and the Goblin King__! It was very funny! We also had Student of the Month. Sean won it for being responsible. Our new goal is caring. I wonder who will win? This week was also Ben’s visitation and funeral. Our class sent flowers. They were sitting next to the Get-well quilt that we had made Ben. This week was very ghoul-ly!

By Joe, Cierra, Morgan, and Vivian

October 22-26. 2012

This week in Math we continued working on timed tests. Just a little more people are getting 50 in a minute and a half and under a minute. We also learned about multiplication arrays. For example, if you have 4 x 5 you would put 4 dots across and 5 dots down. After you are done with the dots, you fill in the empty space and you get your answer. Another thing we learned about was multiplying two digits by one digit. For example, if you have 63 x 8, you would multiply the 8 by the 3 first. That would be 24. You would put down a 4 and carry the 2. Then you multiply the 8 by the 6 and add the 2 that you carried. That would be 50. So your final answer is 504. Next, we learned about rounding to estimate. For example, if your number is 9,897 and you are rounding to the nearest ten, you would look at the number to the right of the tens place, which is a 7 and if it’s higher than 5 you add one more to the tens place. On Friday we learned about the distributive property. For example, if you have 73 x 8, you would break 73 into 70 and 3. So you would do (70 x 8) + (3 x 8). Then you would multiply 70 x 8 and 8 x 3. After that you would add the answers together and that’s all for math this week.

In Social Studies, we did are winter count final. We got our laptops out and typed our rough drafts and drew a picture to go with it. We started reading our Social Studies books about the seven regions of Indian groups. One of them was the Northwest Indians. The house they lived in was a wood house with a cedar totem pole. The Indians wore waterproof cedar bark clothing. These people used cedar and willow fish nets to catch salmon. Another tribe was the California Intermountain Tribe. They lived in a cone shaped redwood house. The Indians wore clam shell beads on cord necklaces. They used grass baskets with shell, beads, and feathers. This other tribe we talked about was the Indians from the Southwest Coast. They lived in adobe pueblo apartments, and wore woven cotton clothing. The Southwest Indians used a clay pot for storing food.

This week in Language Arts we got to write a letter to our cousins about shots. We actually didn’t give it to them though. We were practicing how to use language appropriate for younger children. We also made ideas for free write ideas. We did Making Words this week. We got to do it with a partner. Instead of scoring lower grades, we got grades that were actually good. We learned something else too. We are doing retell sheets. One day one partner reads a story and then summarizes it. On the next day, the other partner reads the story and summarizes it. On the third day, we answer questions about the story. We also learned about onomatopoeia. That is when you use words in your writing that imitate noise. That is what we did this week in Language Arts.

This week we learned that something very sad happened. It was that our classmate Ben passed away. All of us were very sad and some of us cried a little bit. We all had at least one reason why we would miss Ben. An example would be he always had a smile on his face even if he might be sad. Plus, he always wanted to give you a hug. I think a true fact would be that everyone in our class got at least one hug from Ben. The school is going to come up with a few fundraisers for Ben. One of them is going to be buying better playground equipment because Ben loved the equipment. You would never see him on the blacktop unless it was time to line up! Therefore, Ben will be missed dearly and will always be in our hearts!

By Brendan, Parker, Sean, and Brooke

October 15-19, 2012

This week was just amazing!

In Math this week, we started a unit on multiplication. We also got on Study Island. This week we didn’t have Math for 3 days because we had MEAP for 2 days and the other day we had conferences. Next week, we will be getting back into our regular routine and having Math every day.

This week in Social Studies we learned about the Sioux. They are an Indian tribe. The Sioux lived in the grasslands. They made Winter Counts. A Winter Count is a timeline of one special event that happened every year. They usually made it on an animal skin by painting pictures that stood for the events on the hides. We also learned about the Inuit. The Inuit were an Indian tribe that lived in the Arctic Ice Fields. They had to go hunting and fishing for salmon, seal, caribou, polar bears, arctic birds, and arctic foxes. They lived off of natural resources. The Inuit had their own language. The Inuit language was called Inuktitut.

In Language Arts, we did more sentence fluency. We read tall tales about Mike Fink and Pea Soup Shorty. Just like in Math, we didn’t do a lot in Language Arts because of the MEAP.

This week we had Thursday off so the teachers could conference with our parents. It is just Progress Report time, so we still have time to bring our grades up if we need to. Hopefully, they do not go down.

This week was spectacular!

October 8-12, 2012

Of all the weeks, this week was the best.

This week in Math, we finished our unit on Place Value. We took the Place Value test on Monday. Most of us did much better than we did on the Pretest. We need to remember this information though, because it will continue to keep coming up in Math. We took the Multiplication Pretest because that is our next unit. Today we worked on turning decimals into percents and percents into decimals. To turn a decimal into a percent, you move the decimal two places to the right and then add the percent sign. If you have .56, you would move the decimal two places to the right and you would have the answer 56%. To turn a percent into a decimal, you move the decimal two places to the left and take off the percent sign. If you have 56%, you would move the decimal two places to the left, and it becomes .56.

In Science, we took a Scientific Methods test. Most of us did really well! We did a lot of practice activities to get ready for the test. We are now getting ready to start a Social Studies chapter.

This week in Language Arts, we continued talking about pronouns. We also did a Tall Tale fill-in-the blank sheet. We are going to share our tall tales today and we can’t wait to hear the other tall tales! We are also still working on interjections. We taped our tall tale reader’s theaters and Mrs. Tomlin has turned them into videos. We can’t wait to watch them. Look for them on our Weekly Wiki in the days to come.

This week we started MEAP—Michigan Education Assessment Program. We took the Reading tests. It took two days, and it was easy for most people. Next week we take the Math and Science parts.

This week was phenomenal.

media type="custom" key="21152152" Keelboat Annie

media type="custom" key="21152158" Sally Ann Thunder

media type="custom" key="21152162" Febold Feboldson

October 1-October 5, 2012

This week was amazing!

This week in Math, we did dividing by multiples of 10. You move the decimal to the left one place for every zero in the divisor. For example, 65.23 divided by 10 would equal 6.523. Next, we learned how to break numbers apart into the expanded, expanded form. For example, 23, 896 = (2 x 10,000) + (3 x 1,000) + (8 x 100) + (9 x 10) + (6 x 1). Plus, we also worked on finding the missing factor in a multiplication problem. For example, 4,500 x ___ = 45,000. The missing answer would be 10. We also did two place value reviews, so we can get ready for the TEST on Monday. We continued taking timed tests. Some people are getting under a minute and a half and a few people are getting under a minute!

In Science this week, we did experiments on gumdrops and Twizzlers. The experiments were to teach us about the scientific method and also more about qualitative and quantitative data.

In Language Arts, we did a Hero writing. On Thursday we dressed up as our personal heroes and shared our writing with the class. We read another tall tale. This one was about Pecos Bill. We learned about interjections. An interjection is a word that shows excitement or emotion. Examples of interjections are Wow! Hey! Rats! Ow! We learned a song about them. We also learned about Pronouns. Pronouns are words you use instead of nouns. For example, instead of saying Mrs. Tomlin, you could say she or her. We also learned a song about pronouns. We had the Book Fair this week. It was pretty cool being surrounded by tons of books. Some were the last copy. The class liked a lot of the books there. Some people won free books. We had Student of the Month today. Joe was our Student of the Month for setting goals. Our next goal for Student of the Month is Responsibility.

This week was Spirit Week for Homecoming. On Monday, we could wear pajamas. On Wednesday, we could wear hats. On Thursday, we could dress up as our hero. On Friday, we could dress up in Spirit Wear!

Wow! This week rocked!