Happy Spring, Crew!

Students in the Akers Crew are celebrating a successful Goal Setting week.  Thanks to all families for coming together to support your student’s efforts in reflecting on their progress as of yet and setting academic, character, and HOW’s goals.  Please remember to post these goals in a high profile location and check in with your students regularly to debrief their progress.  We will be checking in with them at school as well.

Math:  
4th Graders are just kicking off a unit on Geometry exploration.  Students will be analyzing shapes and how they relate to each other through symmetry and congruence.  Students will also be building their fluency in measuring angles, classifying shapes, and working with grids. Please make sure to review their homework with them on a regular basis to check in with current learning.  On top of their daily lessons, students have been working on a number project.  Through choosing a favorite number, students find the factor trees, research its prime/ composite classification, create multi- step story problems around the number, and include mathematic vocabulary within the project.

5th Graders have been working on a Dream Vacation Outline as their project in Math.  Students are to research a location of choice and are given $2k-$5k to spend.  They create an “Expense Report” on their daily expenditures, including the transportation, lodging, food, events, extras, and then will present a final project of choice (graph, travel brochure, powerpoint, etc.) on the Friday before Spring Break.   Our daily lessons are comprised of learning the processes of division, including grouping and using the array method.  Students are also learning the standard algorithm, and are expected to analyze story problems, devise a method to solve the problem through division, and show their work in a figuring box.  Students will continue to be quizzed every Friday on their progress.  Please make sure to review their homework with them on a regular basis to check in with current learning.

ELA:
Students are currently reading Good Fit books during the Daily 3, and are regularly conferencing with Lynn and Julie.  They are aware of the strategies they are working on during their daily reading practice, and are debriefing their progress in their weekly conferences.  In writing, students have worked diligently on learning the components to mystery writing, have filled out a very thorough graphic organizer, have conferenced with their peers regarding their outline, and have begun the process of writing their mystery.    Students are still working on their Daily Oral Language each day, and working with spelling words, with bi-weekly assessments.    Akers Crew students are hard at work, book-making!  Sewing the pages together and creating their own stories, the students are extremely excited about their writing!

Expedition:
Students are wrapping a Scientific Method/ Scientific Inquiry mini unit this week.  We wanted to expose the students to a few CCSS (Common Core State Standards) that are not included in our Geology expedition.  The Akers Crew have been exploring plant structures and have planted seeds to observe growing conditions.  Students are taking specific lab notes on each lab, and then are expected to write a lab report on their experiments, either rejecting or accepting their hypotheses. 

Rock Jocks- Don’t Take the Sierra For Granite!…… stay tuned for news on our Spring Expedition!!!!