Week of Feb. 2nd - 5th

LITERACY

Read Aloud:

• Pinduli, by Janell Cannon, focus on identifying adjectives and the nouns they describe
• Zathura, by Crhis Van Allsburg, focus on reAding with expression and visualizing
• Slinky, Scaly, Slithery Snakes, by Dorothy Hinshaw Patent, focus on using pictures to enhance comprehension

Shared Reading:

• Excerpts from Zathura, focus on identifying the main ideas
• Snake Notes - Interactive Editing Sample

Interactive Writing:

• Adjective/Noun Chart
• Identifying and writing the main idea as we read Zathura

Independent Writing:

Students will be defining unknown words used as adjectives and will be writing sentences with the adjectives and nouns we write on chart paper.

Students will aslo participate in Independent Reading, Centers, and Writing Cycles.

MATH:
Tomorrow students will be tested on multiplying by multiples of 10, as well as multiplying by 2-digit numbers. This is something they learned all last week and reviewed today.

We will also looking at estimating greater products (rounding bigger numbers to make it easier to multiply).

This week we will also begin our geometry unit. We will be starting with solids (cone, cube, prism, etc); polygons (quadrilateral, pentagon, octagon, etc.); and triangles (isosceles, scalene, equilateral). Students will be tested on these concepts sometime next week.

Timed Test: the timed test will be on the 12 factors this week.

SCIENCE:

This week in Science, we will be trying a learning technique called "Jigsaw". Students have been divided into "home groups" of five to six students, each of which is also given a number. Individual members of each group then break off to work with other group members with the same number. These are their "expert groups". In these "expert groups", students will take time to research different climate zones for our weather unit. Each expert group has a different climate zone. Afterward, they return to their home groups in the role of instructor to teach the other members about the climate zone that they are now an "expert" in.

The jigsaw strategy is an efficient teaching method that also encourages listening, engagement, interaction, teaching, and cooperation by giving each member of the group an essential part to play in the academic activity. Both individual and group accountability are built into the process. In ESL classrooms, jigsaws are a four-skills approach, integrating reading, speaking, listening and writing.

Thursday we will review all of the climate zones as a class (in case any important details were missed by any groups, and to assure we are all on the same page) and then Friday students will be quizzed on this material.