Happy Friday September 15th!

Hello Everyone!

We have had a great week! People are starting to really get into their routines and we are starting to dive into our first unit.

Here are some quick reminders of dates and important notices going home:

  • ​Parent Meetings Sept. 20/21: Please return blue forms by Monday. 
  • Early Dismissal on September 20th, Wednesday 2:00 PM
  • Late Start on September 21st, Thursday, 9:55 AM: Mark calendar!
  • Field Trip Notice Sept. 28th Science World Trip: Due Sept. 20
  • Yellow Student Verification Forms:​ Check info, due Sept. 22nd
  • Professional Development Day / No School on September 25th, Monday
  • Work Not Finished: Math Fractions Pg 1, Letter for Cap Hill Student due Mon.
  • TERRY FOX: The Terry Fox run is coming up soon! Students will start collecting money for Terry on Monday.

MATH:

This week we have finished our math assessments, and Ms. D will communicate the results to parents next week. We began our unit Crunching the Data! Students worked with a partner to do a survey of their fellow classmates and then report the results in an interesting way on a visual graph. This was a great way for Ms. D to see: our data gathering abilities, our sense of how to organize data, our ability to work with a partner collaboratively, and our understanding of graphs and how they are presented.

We also talked about probability and played some games to get started. Today we continued with some “unfair” dice games and had to explain why they are not fair. Students often say that things are unfair, but this gave them a chance to explain why in words. We also began working on fractions, as we will be doing the conversions of fractions to decimals to percentages. The exercises presented are called “high ceiling / low floor” meaning some students will be working on beginning understandings of fractions, while others will stretch their understandings to percents, operations involving fractions, and other math for statistics.

UNIT:

Our unit focus statement is: Our personal choices play a role in the interconnected system of the human body. The key concepts we will discuss are SYSTEMS and CAUSE & EFFECT. Ms. D introduced the Universal Systems Model involving input, process, output, and feedback. We explored how the human body is a SYSTEM and then talked about how the universal systems model can apply to other things. What are the parts of the SPACE system? How is a GROCERY STORE a system? How is a ZOO a system? In partner groups, students made their own models in their journals of different systems.

We watched a video on nutrition and the digestive system, Ms. D talked about how she doesn’t have a gall bladder and explained what it does! Students did some creative pre-assessment drawings of human anatomy, and now we are using the posters, iPads, and book resources available in the classroom to figure out the parts we may have missed! Today Ms. D led everyone in the HOT AIR EXPERIMENT where students determined their lung capacity using a milk jug, plastic tubing, water, and a straw! You can do this at home and the instructions are in the unit packet. Also included are two optional activities.

CONGRATS BRIAN on trying out the egg experiment which explores how acids work in your stomach!

JOURNALS and DAILY WORK:

We each have a composition book, and it will be used this year for taking unit notes, writing down reflections on our work, sharing thoughts with Ms. D, and recording learning activities. Sometimes Ms. D will ask to see specific tasks and provide students with a check plus, check, or check minus to show if they are on track. Please try to keep up with daily work and complete journal tasks. If you receive a check or check plus and want an upgrade, just re-do it or add detail, then show it to Ms. D the next day. If you take the journal home, remember to return it to school. 

CONGRATS to SHERMAN today for receiving the first check plus plus for amazing thinking on universal systems!

PEN PALS AT CAP HILL!

Everyone has been assigned a pen pal from Ms. Geddes’ class at Capitol Hill — this is the other MACC 4/5 class in the District. Ms. D and Ms. G will be collaborating on several projects this year. We hope this is a great opportunity to meet a friend from across the District and to practice personal letter writing.

Letters and envelopes need to be finished on Monday.

PARTICIPATION RUBRIC:

In grade 4/5 we have letter marks given to us on the report card. Sometimes, these letter marks come from specific big projects and quizzes (usually at the end of units). There are a lot of activities in MACC, however, that don’t have a specific mark given to them. We are sometimes so busy learning, it is hard to give every activity a mark. So, we develop a participation rubric for MACC together. Today we discussed what the letter marks really mean in MACC and how you know if you are being the best participant in your learning.

Here is the Participation and Work Habits Rubric 2017, which you can discuss at home. Ms. D has put it in language teachers, parents, and students can understand, with input from the students. Each year, students seem to truly know what makes a successful student. We use this rubric to guide our daily interactions and learning.

HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND! See you next week!

Ms. D