Long Division, John Locke, Mad-Libs, Hardship Writing, Social Contract, Word Problems, MIA (Spanish class)

This week in MATH we wrapped up chapter two. Your children are making notable progress with multiplication and division, not to mention using a variety of strategies to effectively solve complex word problems. Throughout the year we will continue to work on these important skills, as Math in Focus is a spiraling curriculum, which provides ample opportunities to sharpen vital math skills throughout the year. In chapter three we will review the basic concepts of like and unlike fractions, before we learn to add and subtract fractions with unlike denominators.

During SOCIAL STUDIES we have read and discussed the ideas of John Locke, an English man living in the 16th century, who greatly influenced many of the founding fathers, as they closely examined the challenges and the importance of protecting the rights of people. Students learned about what things would be like in a "State of Nature", as well as learning about the important idea of a Social Contract, an agreement between people to set up a government, agreeing to give some rights up to receive others in return. The students are "mapping" the ideas from our reading and discussions as a way to keep track of all of the important ideas we are learning about! Sample Map.

In WRITING your children just finished their November Personal Response Writing. It was so wonderful to see their writing grow and improve from  their October to November pieces. Through lessons and  teacher and peer feedback, student's topic sentences were more specific and interesting. Ideas were more greatly expanded and final pieces were more carefully proofread. It has been a pleasure to get to know them all a bit better, as they respond honestly and personally to the monthly topics.  If you have not read these writing pieces, you should!

During WORD STUDY this week we reviewed and expanded our understanding of parts of speech
(we wrote Mad-Libs),  continued to work on vowel and consonant suffix spelling rules and furthered our discussion on correct sentence structure.

Below is information from Alicia Phillips regarding a fun math and science experience for families!

http://cse.umn.edu/k12/CSE_CONTENT_254378.php

Math & Science Family Fun Fair

Saturday, Nov. 16, 2013

10 a.m.–4 p.m.

University of Minnesota

Coffman Memorial Union

300 Washington Ave. S.E., Minneapolis

$6 event parking in the East River Parkway Garage.