Recent News

In math we have been talking about angles.  We have been measuring the angles of different shapes with the angles of other shapes.  For example, we use a square and put the vertex of a rhombus into the vertex of the square, and we discovered that three of the rhombuses' angles fit into the right angle of the square, so we know that the acute angles of our rhombuses equal 30 degrees each.  Then we can use those angles to help us measure other unknown angles.

In sadder news, Perla and Katelyn left our classroom, and some of us were crying.  We didn't know that Katelyn was leaving until her cousin came to pick up her things because she was returning to the Dominican Republic.  With Perla, she left because she moved to a different place in Boston, but the bus wouldn't pick her up where she lived, so she had to go to a different school.

Today

In Writing, we were adding transitions words.  These are words that we use to help the reader understand the flow of our writing.  For example, we could use "first," "then," and "after that" to show the reader the order of our thoughts.

In Science, we discussed how we are going to improve our bridges next time.  One idea is to expand the bridges to cover the 12 inch gap and use the cable design.   To do this, one uses an acute triangle and cables or wires hang off the triangle and connect to the other acute triangles.

In Math, we talked about geometry, specifically about quadrilaterals, which are shapes that have four sides, four vertices, and four angles.  Some specific quadrilaterals are squares, rhombuses, trapezoids, and rectangles.  Since we are looking at the attributes of polygons, we also found synonyms for the word "attributes."  Some these include "characteristics," "features," "qualities," and "traits."

Bridge Challenge Continued

Dear Readers,

After a week of anticipation, yesterday we held our bridge competition.  Here is the link to the video of the tests: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tU3Oc0oAtDw.  We have already started reflecting on our designs, and the students have begun to excitedly discuss how to make their bridges stronger for next time.

We would appreciate any feedback.

Sincerely,

Mr. V

Multiplication and Division

We have written story problems like:

• Natalie wants to buy 54 pencils for each student in her classroom.  There are 27 students.  How many pencils will she need to buy?
• Natalie has 100 apples, and she had 13 students.  How many apples does each student get if they get the same amount?

Can you figure out which is multiplication and which is division?

We also talked about mathematical symbols, like less than (<), more or greater than (>), and does not equal (≠).

In addition, we have discussed exponents, which mean a small number that goes on top of the big number.  For example, 21^3 = 21x21x21 = 9,261.


On Wednesday, we're having our test.

A few notes

Over the past few days, we've been involved in a number of projects, including:

• creating arguments and gathering supportive evidence for persuasive letters on the topic of euthanasia of stray cats and dogs;
• exploring and using multiple multiplication strategies;
• discussing the exact definition of "congruent" (i.e., besides having the same size and shape, does it also mean having the same orientation?);
• summarizing chapters to two or three sentences that provide the main topic and the most important details; and 
• learning about and practicing bike safety.

Showa Students' Visit and Building Bridges

Showa Students' Visit
We went to the entrance of the school and waited for the Showa students (Japanese college students).  Together we did origami (like Picachoo, cranes, and paper airplanes), asked each other questions (like "What's your name?" "What is your talent?" "Do you have any brothers or sisters?"), took a tour of the inside and outside of the school, and talked about other topics.  They visited because they wanted to learn about English students, and we wanted to meet them so that we could learn more about Japan.  We look forward to them returning in a few months.

Building Bridges
In Science class, we had drawn designs for bridges.  Then we started building them with hot glue and popsicle sticks.  During the building stage, we thought of ways to make the bridges stronger, like gluing sticks on top and bottom of the bridge.  Next week, we will test the bridges to determine how much weight each bridge will hold before it breaks.  Below are some pictures of us building the bridges.

Audience

Today in our Persuasive Writing, we:

• watched two different McDonald’s commercials that both had the same audience of children, but one was targeted toward little children and the other was targeted toward pre-teens.  We discussed what made them different.  What do you think?

www.youtube.com/watch?v=0eN9KP6lOZs

www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Xl-NbmwK6U

• were writing a letter to Ms. Blake, our school principal, with the thesis statement of, “buy us white boards.”  We did this because we were learning about how to write persuasive letters to different audiences.

Bridge Building and Persuasive Ads

In Science Class, we are going to build bridges.

• We have a challenge to build bridges that span a 12-inch gap, and the only materials we can use are hot glue and popsicle sticks.
• Ms. Rosa, the science teacher, showed us how to use the hot glue gun because we might not know how to use it and because we don't want to touch the tip so that we don't get burned.
• We drafted how we plan to build them.  Then we talked in our group about our different plans.
• Next time, we will start building the bridges, so check back in to see our progress.

Here are some photos of us drafting our bridge designs.

During our persuasive writing time:

• we have been discussing advertisements, their thesis statements, their arguments, and their evidence to support their arguments.
• we have been thinking about products (like a clothes hanger and a loose leaf ring) that we want to advertise.
• we drafted our advertisements to persuade people to either buy or not buy our products.

This is Andrea's public service announcement telling people not to buy door stops because they are dangerous and they cost too much.

This is Katelyn's ad for a clear plastic container.  We should buy it because JayLo, Shakira and Katie Perry choose this clear plastic container over all other clear plastic containers. 

Art class

Today in art class, we:

• practiced blending colors, so that we could use dark, medium, light and very light colors.   We could control the way we color.
• were using blended colors to color our pictures, which we created by outlining with black crayons.

In persuasive writing, we watched a video, and the thesis statement was, "Don't smoke."  Their argument against smoking was that it would ruin your mouth with cancer your teeth would be yellow.  Their evidence was a woman who had mouth cancer and her teeth looked broken and yellow and some teeth were missing.