We've Got Mail
10/27/2017
We did start receiving postcards this week and began to put them up on our map. In our classroom, we are also marking them off on our giant list, so we can clearly see which states we need to keep up with. On Tuesdays, we will continue to meet with the 4th grade to read the postcards that we have received, learn new facts, and put them on the map. During this time, students will also work on writing postcards to return to our fabulous state contributors. If you know anyone sending us mail, please ask them to include a return address on the card. We really want to be able to send them one back! NewspapersNow that we ended reading Ender's Game, students worked on newspaper articles telling us about the battle. They really did an outstanding job and gave a lot of detail in their writing. With this book, I think your student got the ability to watch characters grow individually and as a group. There are many places in this book where we also got discussion ethics, right/wrong questions, and family roles. It was neat to be able to look so closely at a book that they also enjoyed. It was also fabulous having them watch the movie before they completed the last assignments, so thank you for letting them come back for that! Next weekScience will be focused on continental drift and will begin to look at ways to teach the new information that they have learned.
In English, we are going to take a short break from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn to look at some spooky poetry. Because of Halloween, we used last week to begin annotating "The Witch" for poetic devices. We will continue that fun looking at a few other poems Monday and Tuesday. In social studies class, we will continue to read about some of the basics of the industrial revolution. To do this, we will basically look at an important figure or invention at a time and discuss the different events that led to it's need. I have started introducing spelling words and discussing them for about 15 minutes after lunch throughout the week. Students will be given words on Mondays and tested on them on Fridays. Script Reading
10/20/2017
![]() This week we started learning about the Industrial Revolution in our History class. To introduce the topic, we read a script explaining many different problems that lead to new inventions, processes, and ideas. While reading this, we also discussed different authors, writings, and seemingly progressive things that we changing. They enjoyed the script and actually seemed intrigued by how many different things happened around the same time. Looking for Postcards
10/14/2017
U.S. Geography
Monday morning started with a blank map on the board so students could label it and see how many states they could identify. It took a while and was fun to help them figure out. To get better through our geography lesson, we worked together to build a giant map that we could display and see every day. It took a lot of work and a lot of attention to detail. On Thursday, I put a new map up for them to label, and it didn't take long at all for them to correctly label every state. I think we learned a lot. We are also looking for postcards to fill up our map. While working with the 4th grade, students emailed family and friends to ask for mail that tells about their state. Each postcard received will be added to our map in the hall. We can't wait to see how quickly we can fill it up! Literature CirclesResearch
10/5/2017
Constitution ProjectsThis week your student's completed their history projects and presented them to the class. We learned a lot about how our government compares to governments in other countries and they added in a lot of new facts and laws they thought were interesting. Overall, they turned out wonderfully and I think that we learned a lot.
While learning how to follow a rubric for grading, students also got to work with partners to present their research in different ways. During this project, we focused a lot on task management, sharing working equally, and communicating goals towards the end product. This should help us in future projects and collaborative assignments. |
AuthorCharlotte Woodside recently moved to Alaska from Central Texas. This is her 8th year teaching middle school. Archives
April 2018
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