The students had a very successful first week of 2015! They came back from the break focused and ready to learn.
Here is a quick overview of what we have been learning during the second trimester and where we are headed in the next few weeks.
Math - Students have spent a lot of time modeling and solving both multiplication and division problems. The emphasis in the Common Core State Standards is on students being able to show an understanding of place value while solving these types of problems. That means that, in addition to using the standard algorithm for multiplication and division (the way that most of us learned in school), students must also understand how to show multiplication and division on a place value chart or with the area model or another similar place value algorithm. I know that this makes the homework confusing at times for parents, but please remember that it is always okay for your child to leave problems blank (even a whole page on occasion) if they do not understand. That just lets me know that we need to practice some more in class. I do not grade homework, and I only ask that students attempt the problems to see if they are able to solve them independently. Thanks for your continued help with this.
Writing - Informational writing has been our recent focus. Students were tasked with researching a holiday and writing an informational report about it. There were many steps involved in this process, including summarizing what they had read and picking out which information they deemed as important for their report. The students were taught to break their report into sections with appropriate headings and to use transition words and phrases to create flow within their paper. Soon we will be returning to narrative writing and building on the basic structure that students learned earlier in the year. Our goal will be to add more dialogue and description to our stories.
Reading - Several weeks were spent looking closely at nonfiction texts. Students practiced identifying the text structure and picking out main ideas and details. We have now returned to reading groups focused on fiction texts, where we will learn to identify the point of view that the story is being told from as well as continuing to focus on general comprehension.
