Reading
Students completed the midyear benchmark assessments this week.  We also started theme 3 in the Storytown series.  Throughout this theme, students will be read about how living things adapt to our ever-changing planet.  The first story is Life Under Ice,  and the focus skill is identifying and interpreting figurative language.

Students presented their Book Club Movie Posters this week.  They enjoyed looking at each others’ creative designs and learning about the different books that were read and discussed by other classmates.  New book club groups will begin soon.

Math
In both classes, students learned how to add fractions and mixed numbers as well as how to subtract with regrouping.  We reviewed how to find equivalent fractions and then used this idea to compare and order fractions.  We also did problem solving using the strategy of looking for a pattern.  Mrs. Johnson’s students took the mid-chapter quiz this week.  Next week, both classes will be ready for the chapter 7 test.

Science
We started the physics unit on gravity and motion.  During this unit, students will learn about Newton’s three laws of motion and how these laws explain the movement of all objects.  This week we learned about gravity and how it impacts our movement on Earth.  Students also learned the difference between weight and mass.

Social Studies
Students should be working on their Immigration project.  Projects are due Thursday, January 14th.  We completed our unit by discussing immigration today and the process that immigrants go through to become citizens of the United States.  In our next unit, students will learn about civil rights.

Writing/English
In Mrs. Mitchell’s class, students are in the beginning stages of an informational writing.  Students are brainstorming and will then move onto completing their prewriting hand.  In English, we are continuing to learn about nouns.  We discussed how to make singular nouns plural and possessive nouns.

In Mrs. Johnson’s class, students wrote the first rough draft of their persuasive essays and spent time working on revisions.  We also continue to work on Daily Language Review each day to practice grammar skills.