Fall has finally arrived, and there are many exciting happenings in the 4-5 Treehouse! First of all, let me share what we have been up to in school:

READING

Both 4th and 5th graders have finished the unit on Questioning.  They have continued to explore expository text and use their schema (background knowledge) to articulate all they know about a topic before they read.  During guided read-alouds, we have followed the procedure “Stop and Ask Questions” which provided students with the opportunity to use questioning to help them make sense of the text.  Socially, we have continued using prompts to add to each other’s thinking (“I agree with ___ because…,” “I disagree with ___ because…,” “In addition to what ___ said, I think…”).  Also, we have analyzed why it is important to be responsible during reading time.

MATH

Fifth graders are in Unit 2 – Prisms and Pyramids, Investigation 1 – Finding the Volume of Boxes.  They are working on finding the volume of rectangular prisms by looking at patterns of boxes and by building rectangular prisms from connecting cubes.  Students will write a strategy for finding the volume of any rectangular prism.  They will investigate how the dimensions of prisms change when the volume is doubled or halved.

Fourth graders are in Unit 2 – Describing the Shape of Data, Investigation 2 – Using Data to Compare.  They chose their own survey questions for data collection (for example: How many hours do you sleep at night? or How many pets do you have?). Then, students represented and analyzed the data.  They will also be drawing conclusions based on evidence in different sets of data.

SCIENCE

We have just finished Lesson 4 – How can we build a flashlight? By using their knowledge about electric circuits, students will connect a battery, switch, and lamp in a series circuit so that the flashlight turns on and off, provides the best possible brightness with only two batteries, and is portable.  They learned the importance of taking detailed notes, just as scientists like Michael Faraday did.   In the next lesson – Does the Flashlight Work as Designed? – students will build their flashlights based on their original designs, and apply problem-solving strategies to overcome any difficulties in assembling and lighting the flashlight.

WRITING

Both fourth and fifth grader have finished revising and editing their selected piece, and had the opportunity to publish and share their writing with their fellow classmates this week.  Next week, we will begin a 5-day unit on opinion writing, which will help students prepare for the 2015 Florida Standards Assessment – Writing Component. They will discuss what they’ve learned about opinion writing and complete a practice performance task.

SOCIAL STUDIES

We are excited to begin our first Social Studies Module, entitled Going Tribal – Comparing cultural aspects of Native American tribes from different geographic regions of North America.

What was life like in North America in the times before Columbus discovered our continent?  We first need to look at North America’s various geographic regions to find the different Native American tribes who thrived on this land.  Through reading various texts, we will discover the cultural aspects (including but not limited to clothing, shelter, food, major beliefs and practices, music, art, and interactions with the environment) which define these various tribes.

Students will have some basic background knowledge about some Native American tribes, based off their studies in 2nd grade.  In this first Social Studies Module, which will span for about 15 days, our goal is to enhance students’ understanding of the tribes, and for them to examine the cultural similarities and differences of specific tribes (being aware of physical locations and how that impacted culture).  A venn diagram will assist students in this task as we do close readings, and will scaffold them to their summative task – choosing two specific N.A. tribes (from different regions) and explaining the commonalities and dissimilarities of those two tribes’ cultures. As a result, we hope for students to walk away with a deeper understanding of the cultural aspects of our Native American history.  This module will also bridge into our European Exploration studies, and how Explorers impacted the Native American population.

So many amazing things are happening in the Treehouse!  Stay tuned for our next blog post, which will include upcoming events.