Room 20 Classroom Notes October 7-10

We had a wonderful time at Reed College's Cooley Gallery, including creating a tableau vivant, or a living picture scene using togas and freezing our expressions, much like people did before all this technology started entertaining us! This week, students will continue creating their own states. We will sketch maps and begin creating travel brochures. The students' imaginations are amazing! In science, we will begin a planet research project that will be due at the end of next week. We also continue working with calligraphy every Thursday. In math, we are in unit two starting to multiply large numbers. Having our 1-12 multiplication facts down to face larger numbers is very important. I'm asking students to try and practice every night for at least ten minutes. We also will be working with large multiplication visually, building arrays and finding the dimensions of the arrays. In writing, we begin a personal narrative based on memories from a special place. We have already drawn maps of a special place in our lives and placed X's next to memories. Now, we develop one of them into a narrative. We also are working with our artist in residence Michael, who is helping us with drama. We also work with a musician this week. Aaron Meyer will work with our class on Wednesday on our class song entitled, "Why?" In reading, we continue with "Island of the Blue Dolphins," which we started last week. The book is an excellent story about the influence of European culture on native populations and the fall out when these two cultures clash. It brings up many important conversations about native people's rights. It also dovetails into our next Social Studies concept: Native Americans. Essay of the week is short: "We just finished, "Frindle," which got us thinking about words and where they come from. Please create your own word this week and write about what part of speech it is, a definition, use the word in a sentence, and then write three reasons you think this word should be used instead of the word it replaced. Is it more descriptive? Is it more useful? Finally, write down three synonyms and three antonyms for your word. Students will receive a graphic organizer to help them start out. All homework due Thursday, October 10th. Any Camp documents must be returned! Also, please sign up for conferences!!! Geography Quiz on Western, Midwestern, and Northeastern States and capitals on Thursday.