Vocabulary: The vocabulary strategy for this week is analogies. There will be a test on this skill on Friday.
Spelling: This week we will be working on words with Long u and commonly misspelled words. There will be a test on Friday over the spelling words. The words are: blueprint, cued, clueless, cruise, duel, ensue, lawsuit, pursue, recruit, rue, ruin, sluice, subdue, suitor, issue, fewer, less, greater, more.
Grammar: This week we will be working on adjectives. There will be a test on Friday. Students are encouraged to study their grammar notebooks each week.
Writing: Students will be doing a research project. The prompt is as follows: You have been invited by the Water Crisis Committee to go on a fact-finding mission. Your job is to study the water supply in a country in crisis and report back to the committee about the problem and possible solutions. Prepare a presentation that includes a map of the country, a three-paragraph report, and at least one visual that supports the information in your report. The report will be due on Monday, December 15.
Math: We will be working on our Go Math series. We are completing Chapter 7 this week. It is about multiplying fractions. We will complete lessons 7.6-7.9 this week. The students will take the Mid-Chapter Checkpoint quiz on Tuesday over lessons 7.1-7.6. There will be one page of math homework assigned nightly, except for Friday. Each Friday, students will also take a multiplication timed test. It is very important for students to be fluid with their multiplication facts. Daily practice of multiplication facts is encouraged.
Social Studies: We have started a new unit on The Civil War. To help us learn about the war, we are reading the book Across Five Aprils by Irene Hunt. Students have been assigned a copy of this historical fiction novel and be answer questions about the book.
Summary of Across Five Aprils: Drawn from family records and from stories told by the author's grandfather, this deeply moving novel conveys the bitterness and drama of the Civil War through the lives of an ordinary family. The story is told through the eyes of young Jethro Creighton, who lives with his closely knit family in a farming community in southern Illinois. In April of 1861, Jethro is nine years old, and too young to understand the meaning of war. By the second April, Jethro has watched his older brothers go off to fight-- two for the North, one for the South. His parents are stricken by grief and suffering as the neighbors take revenge. As the seasons change and the years pass, the family closeness dissolves, one brother is killed, and a cousin deserts the Union Army. By April of 1865, the meaning of war has become all too clear to Jethro. Although still a boy, he is forced to leave his boyhood behind. (From The Civil War: Literature Units, Projects, and Activities by Janet Cassidy)
Science: We will begin a new unit on classifying living things into kingdoms. Students will be working cooperatively in their groups to take notes and present their notes to the class in the form of a PowerPoint presentation. Notebooks will be graded weekly.