5B Activities for the Week of October 20th, 2014

Hello Parents and Students!

Here are the reminders for this week:

1.  Boosterthon will begin this week!  This is a new fundraising program at Watts.  The students will be introduced to it this week.  Information will be forthcoming!

2.  If you have not returned the Parent-Teacher Conference form, please do so at your earliest convenience.  Thank you!

3.  The end of the 1st Quarter is this Friday, October 24th!  That was fast!

Here's what's going on in the curricular areas this week: 

Word Study:  This week we will be reviewing all that we've learned in word study during the 1st Quarter.  We will be focusing on words and syllable types that are Closed, Open, Open with Exceptions, VC-e and Soft "C" and "G".  The words have been posted to the blog and the test will be on Friday.

Math Acceleration:  Unit 2 begins this week!  We are running just a little behind, so we will be stepping up the pace just a bit.  This unit focuses on Ratios, Unit Rates, Proportions and Percents.  Our first lesson will be on dependent and independent variables and then we will be moving into ratios.  Students have begun working on www.frontrowed.com as well.  This is a great resource in which the kids can utilize at home as well.

English Language Arts (ELA):  We accomplished a lot last week!  We will be finishing up some projects this week as it is the last week of the quarter.  We will finish (or get close to finishing) our anchor text, Becoming Naomi Leon.  We will continue analyzing our text-dependent questions and studying vocabulary related to this book.  We will continue our journal writing as well as comparing and contrasting characters.  We will also be summarizing the chapters using our recently learned annotating skills!  :-)  Our citizenship lessons will continue and our current focus is bullying.  Finally, we will be recording our Where I'm From poems.

Social Studies:  We have a lot going on in SS this week!  First, we will be finishing up our mini SS research projects.  Presentations will begin on Friday and continue into the following week.  Also, we will be working on part of the Think Quest.  This part will focus on explorers who sailed for various European countries.  The students will also be working in inquiry circles to obtain information about these various explorers. Finally, students have completed their Taino diary entries and will be working on their European diary entries to conclude the week.

That is it for now!  Please email me with questions.  Thank you and have a great week!

~Mrs. Bennick :-)