Literature Circle
Our focus on literacy this week was on Poetry. We read two wonderful pieces: No acabaran mis flores by Nezahualcoyotl and Pueblo fantasma en California by Adela Basch. We had a memorable time sharing some of our favorite poetry and using these special pieces as mentor texts. Once again, we feel so fortunate to be able to speak two languages and have access to these pieces in the original language they were envisioned and created. We concluded that a piece of poetry (and really any text), once translated, looses part of its essence, part of its soul.
The literacy objective were to:
• Demonstrate understanding of symbols, imagery, and figure of speech.
• Make connections to using descriptive, vivid, sensory language.
• Make personal connections creating a mother’s day poem.
Book Club Update: As homework, students who are still not finished, were assigned to finish their notes for the short story Dos sonadores, and be ready to discuss on Monday. They were also asked to get started with the story Barbie, which we will finish in class next week.
Science
Focus Question: Is there a limit to the amount of salt that can dissolve in 50 ml of water?
Students were introduced with the concept of saturation. They made a saturated solution by adding salt to water until no more salt was able to dissolve. Using a balance, they found the mass of the solution to determine the amount of salt that dissolved in the solution. Next week, we will continue to explore these science concepts.
Science concepts:
• A solution is saturated when as much solid material as possible has dissolved in the liquid.
• Solubility is the property that substances have dissolving in solvents. Solubility is different for different materials and can change with temperature and different solvents.
• Simple solutions are composed of two components: a liquid solvent and a solid solute dissolved in the solvent.
History and Geography
This week we continued learning about the Civil War. Our objectives were:
- I can answer questions about the election results 1860
- I can analyze information about how prepared the Union and the Confederacy were for the war
- I can read quotes from civil war soldiers and summarize their point of view on fighting.
- I can research important leaders of the civil war by reading task cards and answering prompts
Mathematics
Mother’s Day celebration!
This week we continued learning about the properties of triangles. Our objectives were:
- understand and apply the properties of right, isosceles, and equilateral triangles
English Spelling
This week we continued our rotation. Our rotation days were:
- Vocabulary day: This week our lesson was about blends. We added squiggle and telethon to our word wall.
- Spelling City: Students had a chance to work on computer skills as well as spelling on spellingcity.com. If your kiddo would like to work on spelling city at home they can follow this link www.spellingcity.com/users/34SpellingSWS
- Writer’s Workshop: This week for writer’s workshop students were tasked with revising and editing their homework spelling sentences.
Our spelling test will be on Monday, May 14!