L.A. - We will continue to focus on Partner Reading and Paragraph Shrinking. Remember that while Partner Reading we are focusing on pronounciation of unfamiliar words, extending our vocabulary knowledge, and aiming for improved fluency. Some of you are ready to work on your expressive reading as well. Paragraph shrinking involves paraphrasing - expressing the main idea of each paragraph in just a few words. We will continue to read across the curriculum during these sessions - Science, Social Studies, Health Education and more.
Let's set a tentative due date for the Bookworm task. Most of you have finished reading your book - great job! And many of you are ready to start writing your review based on the notes you took in the "Book Review Start Guide". If you are feeling behind in this task, please make a big effort to get caught up. We're going to try to have this task written, revised and turned in by Friday this week. Stand by for confirmation. Don't forget to check the Bookworm page on the blog for examples, and to stop by Classroom for a checklist of criteria.
Writing - Your How-To Comics should be finished. If you aren't done (and that's about half of you if you're reading this on Monday), please spend some time at home to complete this task. Again, criteria for the comic can be found on Classroom. We will move on to a new writing task this week, one that ties together our first three traits - Ideas, Word Choices, and Organization. Look for the Mysterious Object writing task on Classroom.
Math - We're going to wrap up our mini-exploration of Average this week. Be sure to understand the process for finding the mean of a set of values. "Mean" will be joined by two other statistical middle ground values - the "Median" and the "Mode".
Science - We'll continue to explore the Moon this week. By the way, I borrowed a pretty nice pair of binoculars on Sunday night, and I was not only able to easily pick out Jupiter in the eastern sky, but could clearly see it's spherical shape. (Unlike stars, which appear as a pinprick of light, Jupiter has width). And I was also able to spot one of Jupiter's largest moons. The four Galilean moons - Callisto, Ganymede, Io and Europa appear as tiny balls of light nearby their planet. If you have access to quality binoculars or even a telescope, Monday night should offer another clear sky and a good view of Jupiter and its moons.
And, while you're at it and looking to the east, you should spot a pretty distinctive star. Look for a red-tinted point of light - it'll be quite bright - just to the south (to the right of where you'll find Jupiter this week). Betelgeuse is one of the brightest stars in the sky, and it makes up part of the constellation Orion (look for Orion's "shoulder"). We'll talk about this star, and why it appears red to our eyes.
YEP - we'll work toward project approvals this week. I'm aiming to get you the go-ahead to build a prototype next weekend. In the meantime, we'll discuss sustainability, and how you can make decisions now that will affect your project's triple bottom line.
Enjoy your week, everyone!
