History & Geography

This week we wrapped up our World Lakes unit and began unit 2, Maya, Aztec and Inca Civilizations. Our objectives were:

• demonstrate understanding of lakes around the world and their geography
• identify the Maya as one of the earliest civilizations in the Americas, located in parts of Mexico and Central America
• describe how archaeologists have been able to learn more about the Maya
• identify the main achievements of the Maya and some specific discoveries

Mathematics

This week we continued to learn about Whole Numbers. Our objectives were:

• round numbers to the nearest thousand
• use rounding to estimate sums, differences, and products
• demonstrate understanding of Whole Numbers on the chapter test
• review prior knowledge needed to complete chapter 2

English

This week we began learning about writing paragraphs. Our objectives were:

• identify relevant details and match them to their topic sentence
• add transition words to paragraphs
• practice writing closing clinchers
• complete the Sentence and Paragraph assessment
• complete the spelling quiz and choose new words quiz next Friday, Sept.27

Lectura

This week we continued to dig deeper into our theme Herencia cultural. We discussed how is cultural heritage passed through generations and we read a realistic fiction piece titled Nuestra cancion. Students had a chance to compare and contrast this piece to last weeks selection, La tierra que perdí. Such beautiful pieces of literature. Students are working very hard on increasing vocabulary and using it in different contexts. This week students received a rubric that states the expectations of our first literature circle: Con carino Amalia. We answered questions and created a reading calendar. We are  very excited to start our book club on Monday!

Other objectives for the week included:

• Explain  the characteristics of realistic fiction.
• Apply reading comprehension strategies such as clarifying, asking questions, predicting and summarizing.
• Write a list of ideas that can be developed into possible narratives. 
• Study the spelling patterns of words with stress on the penultimate syllable (palabras graves).
• Learn about simple sentences, and identify subject and predicate.
• Acquire and use accurately grade-appropriate general academic and domain-specific language; gather vocabulary knowledge when considering a word or phrase important to comprehension or expression. 
• Determine a central idea of a topic and how it is conveyed through particular details; distinct from personal opinions or judgments. 
• Analyze in detail how a key individual, event, or idea is introduced, illustrated, and elaborated in a context (e.g., through examples or anecdotes).  

Ciencias

This week we wrapped up our first investigation, The Sun. The weather did not cooperate as we had expected. We will make sure we bring out our sun trackers later on this fall when the skies are clear to continue to analyze and measure all the different time patterns associated with the position of the sun.

Students received globes and flashlights and simulated Earth’s rotation. Using the model, students discussed concepts such what is sunrise and sunset, direction of the rotation of the Earth and what “appears” to happen, and what in reality happens.  We discussed vocabulary such as rotation versus revolution. Reviewed all vocabulary introduced in investigation 1 in context. Next week, we are so excited to start our second investigation: Planetary Systems!