La Lectura

Weekly Concept/Genre: Informational Text

Essential question: How do people benefit from innovation?

It seems like our Literacy time flew by this week! We did have a chance to discuss our focus question and do spelling work, which was focused on Latin roots. We also had some time to continue to make progress on our Unit 5 Expository Writing Assignment. Students started working on their rough drafts. We will continue to to work on this and do our class  reading work next week after we come back from OMSI camp!

Ciencias

We were very fortunate to have Ms. Ellen Ives from Waste Connections come to our school on Earth Day (Monday). We learned so much about the different ways we can contribute to make our world a better place. Minimizing our impact on the environment has been a central topic during science this year. Some of the topics covered during her presentation/discussion included: recycling and reusing, using waste to generate clean, renewable energy,  reducing our carbon footprint, generate awareness within our communities

Also during science, students were introduced to the concept of “Natural Selection”. We read piece and took a video journey to the Galápagos Islands to revisit the location where Charles Darwin gathered data for his theory of natural selection. It is pretty fascinating to see these biologists work with endemic species in one of the world’s finest laboratories for studying natural selection. After learning the history of progressive change of the plants and animals living on the islands, students will think about the island ecosystems and the effects of natural selection over time. We are thrilled to apply all the knowledge and concepts learned during our own field studies next week!

Mathematics

This week we learned about the area of parallelograms and polygons.

• We learned how to find the area of parallelograms and trapezoids
• We learned how to find the area of regular polygons using triangles
• We played a fun math escape room game.

(Written by Lily)

History & Geography

This week we learned about the Industrial Revolution.

• We continued watching the musical Oliver!, which takes place during the Industrial Revolution.
• Oliver! was based on Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens, who was an author during the Industrial Revolution.
• Many of Dickens’ novels were inspired by his own experiences during the time.

(Written by Sophie)

English Writing & Spelling

This week we worked on our rough draft

• We wrote our rough drafts
• We used DARE to Delete, Add, Rearrange, and Exchange
• We also worked with the roots fals, fall, cred, cert, phob.
• We also had our greek and latin roots quiz

(Written by Rafa)

Specialists

Art with Ms. Kelly

Congratulations to Juliette Murrow for winning a prize for her Watershed Reflections art at the Earth Day Fair sponsored by the StreamTeam of Clark Public Utilities! All of the students’ Watershed Reflection artwork is currently on the bulletin board at school and was on display at the Earth Day Fair last Saturday. The students did a great job making these wonderful landscape pictures with an emphasis on the rivers and streams that are part of our water supply.

This month all the students have been working on artwork for Mother’s Day. Our inspiration has come from these books:

“Waiting for Wings” by Lois Ehlert and various books by Eric Carle

Both of these author/illustrators use painted paper and collage to create their amazing books.

We also looked at some famous artwork by Picasso. The students had fun creating their own painted papers using tempera paint and then adding texture. I know you’ll enjoy the artwork that your students will bring home in May!

 

Music with Ms. Erin

In April we learned about Baroque period music. We read about composers Bach, Vivaldi, and Handel, and listened to their music. We learned about instruments used at the time compared to current instruments.
We also continued the construction of songs that the class began creating in March.

In May we will be learning more about Classical and Romantic period composers, and their music. We will learn about instrument development and invention during that time.
We will also continue working on the class compositions, using them to hone vocal and instrumental skills.