In reading, we have been practicing summarizing by using the acronym SWBST (“someone wanted ___ but ___ so then ___.” This helps students focus on the essential elements of a story, including the protagonist, conflict, and resolution. We practiced that by summarizing a short animated video and then we practiced it by reading the Greek myth of Arachne. Next, students will be regularly practicing summarizing their independent reading. This is in preparation for our next writing unit, in which we will be writing creative fiction stories. We begin to look at plot structure as we summarize.
We launched our state map and research projects. Students all did a review of interesting state facts and then selected their stop choices and began their research. They’re looking at geographical features of states such as mountain ranges or canyons, lakes and rivers, learning about population centers and researching census data for their states. They’re also reading about the history of the state and how/when it entered into the union. They will be examining the Indigenous people that lived and still live in those states, and how state lines are imposed on Indigenous regions. They’ll create a map with all of the political physical features as well as a transparent overlay with Indigenous regions that don’t necessarily align with state borders.
In science, we looked deeper at circuits and posed the challenge of lighting two lightbulbs with one battery—and making sure it was bright. We wanted the lightbulbs to be as bright as possible so we first solved the problem by adding a second battery. We looked at the idea of a circuit in series and then we tried to re-engineer our circuits to brightly light the bulb using only one battery. Little by little, Strawberry students arrived at creating a parallel circuit, which offers alternate paths for energy that is not impeded by going through different loads.
In 4th grade math, we finished our unit on multiplication strategies and now we’re deepening those strategies by using the array model. Array models allow the visualization of problems. We are now extending the array model for use with multiple digits, as it helps them decompose them for ease in multiplication. This is a support in moving students from additive reasoning to multiplicative reasoning (moving away from repeated addition, more specifically, and towards more efficient approaches).
In 5th grade math, students are looking at fractions and mixed numbers. Working with money and time, they develop their intuitions about finding common denominators to compare, add and subtract fractions. Students are introduced to double number lines and tables to rewrite fractions with common denominators.
*Please note there were technical difficulties with image files so they will be posted next time