Spirit Week

We had a lot of fun during Spirit week dressing up and collaborating with our peers.  It will be great to celebrate together with our color groups during Unity Day!

Language Arts

In Language Arts this week, we launched our Fantasy genre study.  Students will be asked to read AT LEAST two books between now and March 25th.  They can choose a physical or e-book from home, school, or a bookstore.  

This week we read our mentor text "The Fountain Of Fair Fortune" by JK Rowling and set up our notebooks with our rubrics and plot map.  We also talked about the importance of setting in the story and asking "What kind of place is this?" and "What rules seem to govern this place?" throughout the text.  It is also important to notice how/why these rules are important to the story.

Social Studies

In Social Studies this week, students participated in their scored discussions on Religion and Beliefs.  I was quite impressed with how well the students listened to one another, asked questions and made comparisons.  We will launch Ancient Greece next week.

Transitioning LA units

Language Arts

In Language Arts this week, we began to make the transition from our Fairy Tales, Myths and Legends unit to our Fantasy genre study.  Students had time to make additional notebook entries to show mastery of our learning targets and we took an assessment, using Newsela.  

To prepare for our Fantasy unit, students will need to get their first fantasy book and bring it next Tuesday, the 13th.  This can be from the library, home, Overdrive, Kindle, a bookstore etc.  We will be in this unit until Spring Break at the end of March.  

The final draft of their family folklore is due on February 18th.

Social Studies

In Social Studies this week, students continued their research on the belief system of their choice.  We spent some time talking about the reliability of sources we find online and how library databases can provide trustworthy information that can be verified.

The Scored Discussion will be on February 19th.