Today we read more about the Columbian Exchange and how it forever changed the world we live in and then we read and discussed the Spanish Armada and how England's defeat of the Spanish shifted the balance of power in Europe and began the fight over land in the Americas.
Reminder- Explorer quiz retake will be given tomorrow during WIN. Use the quizlet to study!
0 Comments
I began class by introducing the IXL skill for the week: Adverbs. We talked about how it is important to know the difference between a noun and a verb in order to understand the difference of adjectives (which describe nouns) and adverbs (which describe verbs...and sometimes adjectives). After we finished the mini lesson we took out our reader's journals to continue working on our Harry Potter paragraphs. I explained that the focus of this paragraph is organization: making sure students begin with a topic sentence , then 2-3 reasons that prove why they belong in the Hogwarts house they sorted themselves into- with each reason followed-up by a sentence giving a specific example from their life that proves that reason. These paragraphs are due Thursday. Students peer edited and then were able to begin writing their final drafts today in class. Students that have not yet finished their rough drafts should finish in WIN or at home before class on Thursday.
Beginning this week all IXL retakes will always be given on Monday's during WIN. I have found that when a student doesn't do well on the quiz 99% of the time they had not done (or completed all) of their IXL homework that week. By moving the retakes to Monday the kids will have the weekend to complete all their IXL homework and not have to try and do the current IXL skills while still working on completing the previous weeks skill. I will be making sure kids know before they go home Friday how they did on that day's quiz. Homework: IXL: V1, T1, W1-W2; Figurative Language Book Talk (see calendar on home page for due dates) In Language Arts students took their adjective quiz...the students who did their IXL homework this week tended to do very well. There will be a retake offered Monday during WIN- students must complete their IXL homework this weekend in order to take the retake- 99% of students who did not do well on the quiz had not done their homework this week. After the quiz we watched a short video in honor of Fun Film Fest Friday and then we read from Harry Potter for the last 10 minutes of class.
In Social Studies I passed back lots of work to the students and we updated our portfolios and we also used that time to clean out our accordians and throw away anything we no longer needed. To continue to the orginization Kristen and I had the kids clean out their lockers during WIN- man are some of these kids hoarders!! We got rid of lots of moldy food and returned A TON of library books. We took our mid-unit explorer quiz today- the students took the quiz on the ipads. The quiz had multiple choice, true/false and short answer questions- I am going to try and score all of these today/tonight and will update the portal as I grade. As always, a retake will be provided and any student who scores an 84% or below (C+ or lower) is highly encouraged to retake...students who do not pass the assessment MUST retake.
Today in LA we began class with Harry Potter, reading about his first quidditch match. Then we headed up to the computer lab where we were able to begin typing our narrative stories and put our explode the moments that we wrote earlier this week into our story. Once the entire story is type into google docs it will be much easier to make the necessary edits and revisions. I will be conferencing one-on-one with each student over the course of the next few weeks to help them improve their stories and writing.
Homework: IXL: U1-U2 (adjectives) and X1-X3 (adjectives that compare) quiz tomorrow! Figurative Language book talk- see your child's planner for their due date (the date they have to present their talk to me). Today I spent class making sure everyone was set up on quizlet with an account and had joined my quizlet class so that they had access to the study guide. After they were set up students had the rest of the period to study for tomorrow's quiz. It is important that kids remember to set both the flashcards and the test to give the "term" first and not the definition.
Homework: Study for tomorrows quiz- use the quizlet! All students can sign on to quizlet.com by clicking "sign on using google account" and then they just will have to sign on to their school email account. That will bring them right to my study guide. Today we did a round robin peer review activitiy. The students all sat in groups and had taken their explode the moment paragraphs out of their writers notebook and written a fake name on top of the paper in order to remain anonymous. Then the groups swaped papers in a clockwise order with other groups in the class. Each student in the group would have 30 seconds to read as much of the explode the moment as they could in that time, at the end of the 30 seconds they would pass the paper they read to the person sitting next to them and repeat the process again until everyone in the group had read all the papers. After reading all the papers in the group the kids had 1 minute to then discuss which of the papers did the best job exploding the moment- they would come to a conclusion and write down the name of the winning paper. Then all the groups would switch again and start the process again with the new papers...this continued until all groups had read all of the papers in the class with the exception of their own groups. After we were able to have a whole class discussion about what they noticed in the different student writing- what did people do well? what could we improve? I also read aloud the paper that got the most votes overall so the students could hear it.
Homework: IXL: U1-U2 & X1-X3, Figurative Language Book Talk- check planners for individual due dates Use this link to study for Thursday's quiz: https://quizlet.com/join/PSJs5EetU The best method for studying will be flashcards- you can star any that you don't know- make sure you set it up to start with Term (not definition...you can select this under options)
Today in class we discussed the Columbian Exchange which is the name given to the exchange of people, plants, and animals across the Atlantic Ocean after Columbus's journey to America. Homework: STUDY FOR THURSDAY'S QUIZ!!! I created the quizlet using the quiz- so as long as students study and master the quizlet they should do excellent on the quiz! Today as I read aloud from Harry Potter I asked the students to raise their hand every time they heard an example of figurative language...I also would stop reading if I came across figurative language that the kids didn't notice and re-read it asking them to see if they could figure out what it was. JK Rowling uses TONS of figurative language in her books so in the one chapter we read today the kids were able to identify: similes (many), metaphor, alliteration (a few dif. examples), and a hyperbole! I stressed the importance to the kids of making the figurative language in their books with sticky notes as they read- otherwise they will find themselves in the position of having to re-read their books in an attempt to find examples.
After read aloud I had the kids work on their sorting hat paragraph. Prior to writing we discussed how to format our paragraph and what they need to include. See the poster below that I created for them to refer to as they write. On Friday after our ixl quiz the kids will be finishing their paragraphs and sharing them in groups with students who sorted themselves into the same house. Homework: IXL: U1-U2 (adjectives) and X1-X3 (adjectives that compare), Book Talk- please see your child's planner- each child has a specific due date for their talk- this will be the day the will be presenting their book talk to me. Today's lesson and discussion was about explorers who searched for mythical places- particularly the Seven Cities of Gold. We will have a quiz on Thursday around the 3 essential questions we have been working on thus far.
I will provide students with a study guide tomorrow to help them get ready for Thursday's quiz. |
Archives
April 2020
|