Week at a Glance 1/6

Math- We are continuing our unit on fractions.  I will introduce comparing fractions.  At first I am teaching them to draw two identical stacked rectangles, partition the rectangle, and then shade the fractional part.  This helps them to visualize the size.  (See the example below.)

Eventually, they will be able to look at the fraction and reason that the more you partition a fraction the smaller the pieces get.  They will no longer need to draw the model once they have that understanding.




Science-We are continuing our unit on forms of energy.  Students will design a robot that uses all 5 forms of energy and sketch what it will look like.  This has been a lot of fun for students in the past.

Week at a Glance 12/9 and 12/16

Math-We will start our new unit on fractions this week.  Students will learn how to notate fractions as the numerator (number shaded) over the denominator (total parts of the whole).  We are discussing the idea that the more times you cut or share a whole, the smaller the part.




Science-We will start our study on the five basic forms of energy-mechanical, electrical, light, thermal, and sound.  Students will brainstorm examples and we will go on a scavenger hunt around the school looking for them too.

Week at a Glance 11/18, 11/25, 12/2

Math-We are starting our unit on area.  Students will relate what they have learned from arrays and multiplication to solving the area of given shapes.  We will also be tying in measuring using centimeters and inches during this unit as well when they draw their own shape and find the area.

Science-We will review the states of matter (solid, liquid, gas).   We are discussing how matter changes from different states.  See the image below for vocabulary being used in class.

Week at a Glance 11/11

Math- We are finishing our 2nd unit on multiplication and division this week.  Students will apply what they have learned from our unit to solve multi-step problems, involving all operations-addition, subtraction, multiplication, or division.  In the past, this has proven to be very tricky.  I encourage students to use the CUBES method below as a step by step guide to solving the problems.  If the students see more than two numbers in a story problem, they need to ask themselves are all these numbers important to solving and then they have to visualize how to use all the numbers to arrive at a solution.

Science-We will review the states of matter (solid, liquid, gas).    We are discussing how matter changes from different states.  See the image below for vocabulary being used in class.

Week at a Glance 10/21 and 10/28

Math-We will go back to multiplication this week, focusing more on the factors of 6, 7, 8, and 9.  These are harder to memorize.  Please have your students practicing their skip counting (6, 12, 18, 24, etc.), Xtra Math, and multiplication flash cards.  We will be going deeper with the commutative and distributive property of multiplication.  See chart.

Science- Students will focus on the properties of matter this week.  The will use their senses to observe size, shape, color, hardness, and texture of given objects.

Week at a Glance 10/14

Math- This week our focus is on reviewing addition and subtraction with regrouping, as well as subtracting across zeroes. Students will add with sums up to 1,000 and subtract with a minuend (top number) up to 1,000.

Science- We are starting our unit on matter.  Students will focus on the properties of matter this week.  The will use their senses to observe size, shape, color, hardness, and texture of given objects.

Week at a Glance 10/7

Math- This week we will start our new standard of rounding to the nearest tens and hundreds.  I will have the students draw a vertical number line with endpoints as the two nearest tens or two nearest hundreds.  They will determine the midpoint of the number line and plot the number they are rounding on the number line.  Any number in the "round up zone" (5 ones/5 tens or above) rounds up, anything below rounds down.  See the example below.

Science- We are starting our unit on matter.  Students will focus on the properties of matter this week.  The will use their senses to observe size, shape, color, hardness, and texture of given objects.