Conversions, Conflicts, Columbus, and Native Communities

Greetings, and welcome back after a chilly three-day weekend!  It may be getting colder outside, but things in Room 32 are heating up!  As noted in my Class Dojo message on  Friday, student newsletters will be sent home on Tuesday do to a printer issue (It wasn't me!). Here is what's going on in our classroom for the next two weeks:

Math

Last week we finished up our seemingly never-ending lessons on multiplying 2-, 3-, and 4-digit numbers and decimals and a quiz was given on Friday.  You will receive the graded copies on Tuesday for your viewing pleasure.  This week we take our knowledge of multiplying and translate it into converting measurements!  We'll be converting lengths, weights, and volumes like crazy all week and showing off our knowledge on Friday with a quiz.  Look forward to some  metric and standard measurement conversions in the homework. The homework videos for this week are below: 

• Tuesday - Lesson 13
• Wednesday - Lesson 14
• Thursday - Lesson 15

Social Studies

Our Native American tribe research projects will be concluding this week with presentations and continued work on the DIY tribe shelters.  As an extension to this project, we will be writing a historical fiction narrative story in the point-of-view of a tribe member.  Keep an eye out for updates on Twitter about the progress of the projects.  

In addition to our tribe projects, we will continue the discussion about Columbus Day and whether this "holiday" should continue as a celebration.  We will be collaborating with a State Representative who helped changed the focus of this day in her district to "Indigenous Peoples' Day", and discuss our next steps as a class as advocates for the native people we are currently researching.

English/Language Arts

Vocabulary

The next two weeks we will focus on words that share the "ject" root.  Look for at-home lists and studying opportunities with these words.

Writing

Our writing this week will focus around identifying the different conflicts in our reading, providing evidence to support a theme, and a historical fiction narrative from our tribe projects.  In addition, we will include some persuasive writing with our Native American advocacy project and see if our voices can be heard outside the walls of North School to create actual change in our community!

Reading 

Conflict and Theme will be our focus this week.  We will jump back into our class novel, Crenshaw, and use it for finding evidence to prove our inferences.  The students may end up bringing the book home if in-class reading isn't completed.

Have a great week!  If you don't follow our class on Twitter, you should!  I'll keep you updated through Class Dojo as well.