Curriculum Overview 2024-2025

Wednesday, June 1, 2022

       Happy Wednesday!

Ask your child to tell you about the 5th and 6th grade Bee presentations that they saw today.

Character traits/word of the Month - Acceptance and Inclusion. (Click the words to hear the book from the media center.)

🏊🏊Swim is on Tuesdays and Fridays - Don't forget your swim kit!🏊🏊

Check inside your blue Take Home folder each night!
The following assignments should be written in your child's school planner, which is inside their zipper binder/trapper  Parents, please use this blog to 'cross-check' with your child's planner. They should be completing their planner every day in class.

Reading (Bring in a chapter book. Keep your book inside your binder)
3rd graders - Read 20 mins (minimum) each night
4th graders - Read 30 mins (minimum) each night
Reading a non-fiction book? - Look for the 5 Structures (Con&Con, Prob&Sol, Cau&Effe, Seq & Descrip)
Reading a fiction book? - Look for the 6 signposts (Comp&Con, Aha, TQu, WoW, Ag&Ag & MemMo)

Language Arts 
Talk About - What is a simile or metaphor?
(This is only to talk about with a parent at home. No writing is required)
 - Look over your Opinion Essay and add details to make your paragraphs longer - Your                essay is in your Google Drive, log in with your @bps-schools.com email
 - What is an example of a problem and solution in the novel, Poppy?
What was your favorite story/article in the Scholastic News magazine that you read in class?
- The story of Poppy by Avi. Who are the main characters? 
Tell a parent about your Point of View paragraph
The informational Writing presentations that you have listened to in class. Which did you enjoy? What did you learn?
Did you use Creative Commons to select 1 or 2 pictures to support your writing? What topic did you choose for your informational writing? Which of the five text structures did you choose to write in?
What are the 5 Structures of Non-Fiction writing? 
-  5 or more Text Features in Non-Fiction writing 
The Sign of the Beaver - What differences and similarities have you seen in the movie compared to the novel? What were the important events that were included or left out of the movie?
- What did you learn from our field trip to the nature center.
- What is empathy? How can you show empathy towards your classmates?

Word Study
Next word sorts were assigned (see below) THIS IS THE LAST ASSIGNED WORD STUDY LIST FOR THE YEAR!
Students should have their torn out word list and put it in their blue folder 
Complete 4 games on power spelling by Sunday - 6/5/22  
Login App.powerspelling.com Complete 4 of the 6 games assigned. (If the game has 2 different options, you can play both of these options and they will count towards your 4 games.) Test is on 6/6/22 
Each student has a paper copy of their Word list to study, which was torn out of their Words Their Way book. (Your child's list corresponds to how they performed on the Spelling inventory.) Word Study Codes: WW - Within WordSA - Syllables and Affixes, and DR - Derivational Relations. 
Your child will know their list/code:
WW - Sort 35
SA - Sort 25
SA - Sort 41
DR - Sort 8
DR - Sort 11

Math
4th Grd - Journal page 288 and 290
3rd Grd - H/R 5-7 
Complete your Thaquiz.org assignments
XtraMath 3x per week. Complete a session with Mr. C! Keep going until Mr. C says "You're Done!" If you want to keep going sign out, then sign back in and continue! One session on XtraMath usually only lasts about 5-7 mins.
To show your scores from the Post-test - Login on Classlink, click on the Thinkcentral App. Click My Scores

Social Studies
Talk About -  Explain a public issue concerning the Great Lakes?
(This is only to talk about with a parent at home. No writing is required)
Previous Talk About topics:
What forms of transportation help Michigan grow? Why did Michigan need new roads? Why did the invention need roads?
What are Michigan's natural resources?
 How did lumbering change Michigan?
- Who was Lewis Cass? (MI Territory, Governor, left MI after War of 1812) 
- Who was Stevens T. Mason? (Boy Gov. Michigan's 1st State Gov.)
 - What invention made Michigan develop and grow?
- What did you learn about Chinese New Year culture?
Who was Antoine de Cadillac?
- Who was Father Marquette?
What did you learn about Thanksgiving and Sarah Hale
- Michigan's Native American research that we have started with Mrs. Truesdell
- Who were The Three Fires?
Who were The Hopewell?
What are the cardinal directions on a compass rose? What features do you find in the Upper Peninsula and the Lower Peninsula?
 - Tell a parent a fact you learned about the Great Lakes (remember the clues that you had to solve to name each lake.) 
 - Tell a parent the names of the five Great Lakes
 - Tell a parent a fact about one (or more) of the state symbols we learned about (Choose from Apple Blossom, White Pine, Robin, Brook Trout, White-Tailed Deer, Painted Turtle, Petosky Stone, Dwarf Lilly, Mastadon) 

Science
Talk About - What are two ways we can protect our Great Lakes Or conserve water?
(This is only to talk about with a parent at home. No writing is required)
Previous Talk About topics: Link to Eagle Webcam
Give an example of a food chain in our immediate environment.
What 3 organisms compete for Minnows in a freshwater environment?
 - Explain what the preferred environment is for Isopods and mealworms. What do mealworms eventually change (morph) into?
Explain what adaptations are. (think about the animals for the video - anteater, sloth, armadillo, echidna, and giraffe)
Give your parents an update about the eagle observations that we have studied. (Food brought to the nest: Fish, Corn on the cob, rabbit, pheasant - Feathers have darkened, both chicks have grown - A LOT!)
Eagle Observations: Where is this nest located? How can you tell the male from the female? What is a "shift change?" How many eggs are there? How big and what shape are they? When are they scheduled to hatch? How big is the nest?
-  Explain the erosion and deposition that happened in the stream table
- Explain what 'physical and chemical weathering' is. How did chemical weathering (acid rain) affect the 4 rocks; limestone, sandstone, basalt, and marble?
- Tell a parent about your journey as an igneous rock. Where did your journey end up (in the soil, in the river, or in the interior earth.) How many 'rolls of the die' did it take before you ended your journey?
- What did you observe in the four soil samples? (River delta, Mountain, desert, and forest soil) -- What is humus and why is it an important part of soil?
- Coldwater contracts (gets smaller) and Hot water expands (gets bigger) BUT  What happens when water changes state from liquid to solid? (ice)
- How do cold water and hot water respond in room temperature water?
- How you made a thermometer in class. Explain what happened when you placed it in cold and hot water.
- How do you measure the temperature of hot, cold, and room temp. water.
- How much water did your small sponge absorb?
- How Strider insects "walk on water"
- What direction does water flow? Explain what scientific words, evaporation, condensation, and precipitation mean.
- How does slope affect the speed at which water travels

Book Orders Click on the digital ALL Flyers link
If you would like to place a book order please click on the link on the right side of the blog. Set up a username and password (of your own choice) and please link your account to our class using the following code: GKQKW  Each $ spent earns our class points that I can use to purchase new books for our classroom library! Thank you! 

Click on this link to view some pictures from the trip to the E.L Johnson Nature Center