What We're Learning this Week! (September 29-October 3, 2014)

In Math this week, we began by taking our pre-test over standard 5.NBT.3, which turned out to be the best pre-test scores so far! We had 3 students in green, meaning they scored an 80% or better and don't have to take the post-test, quite a few in yellow, indicating a score of 60-70%, and although we had more red (50% or lower) than anything, MANY of those reds were right at 50%, meaning they were BARELY red. All in all, these scores are still fine, considering this was a pre-test and skills hadn't been taught yet. 

In Social Studies, we began discussing Explorers and the tools they used during exploration. We worked both Monday and Tuesday on reading about various underwater "ship-wrecked" artifacts, noting what they did, what they were used for, and then sorted them into categories, such as a navigational tool used, an item brought back from the New World, etc. Wednesday we "Read Further" about Christopher Columbus and completed a Processing activity that required us to write in an "Exploration Log" about one artifact that we used to help navigate our trip and one artifact that we brought back with us, which allowed us to integrate Writing in Social Studies! A win-win!

In Science, we continued working on Matter and its states. Monday we watched a BrainPop over the 3 states of matter and completed an activity. Tuesday and Wednesday we completed comprehension handouts about liquids and gases. Finally, on Thursday, with partners, we did a simple States of Matter Sort. 

Thursday in Social Studies we opted not to take our end-of-the-chapter test and, since the weather was great, took a walk instead! We listened to the podcast about Marco Polo to help kick off our next chapter about specific explorers, their backgrounds, reasons for exploration, etc.