A lot was going on this week. April Fools Day was probably the most fun for everyone. I have to open this week’s newsletter by sharing my favorite joke brought in by E. and D.: “Brownies”. Get it?
This was a busy week for PBL as our groups finalized their plans and began to make blueprints. We finished researching potential ways to move our salmon. We sketched our ideas on blueprints from different perspectives of the dam. Groups created a blueprint key legend to help visualize the different components they will need to make. Now we are to the point where groups will need to compile an inventory of potential materials.
Our information articles are finally coming together. We wrote the conclusions for our articles using a transitional phrase and an ending statement. Students also thought about how their spread would look. We discussed the purpose of different article features such as pictures, diagrams and graphs. My favorite part of this week was revision and compound sentences. It was a great opportunity to show School House Rock’s “Conjunction Junction”. It was the first time many had even heard of School House Rock.
This week we discussed how to make inferences in our reading. We kicked things off by making guesses on what will happen next in our books. Then, using our equation BK + TC = I (background knowledge plus text clues equal inference) we made inferences on the meaning of difficult words. Altogether, this will be a great foundation and skillset for the reading component of the SBAC.
On the topic of the SBAC, we begin testing April 21st. So there is a good chunk of time to get ready and start brushing up on reading and math. Once again, here are the practice tests you can take at home: http://wa.portal.airast.org/training-tests/
-Mr Bing
Week in Review
Most Important Idea
- Rats of Nimh because its so suspenseful, very interesting and Mrs Firsby is learning about NIMH.
Most Important Activity
- April Fools and the Brown E's.
Most Important Experience
- Having our recess cut short because of a bad April Fools joke.
Three Questions
1. What’s a better unit of measure for calculating the area of your room: square inches or square feet?
2. What does it mean to infer?
3. Did your group finalize their plan for the D.A.M. Project.
-Mr Bing
Week in Review
Most Important Idea
- Rats of Nimh because its so suspenseful, very interesting and Mrs Firsby is learning about NIMH.
Most Important Activity
- April Fools and the Brown E's.
Most Important Experience
- Having our recess cut short because of a bad April Fools joke.
Three Questions
1. What’s a better unit of measure for calculating the area of your room: square inches or square feet?
2. What does it mean to infer?
3. Did your group finalize their plan for the D.A.M. Project.