PEMDAS, UW, and the Boston Tea Party

A Week in Review

April 22 - 26

 

 

What an amazing way to end the week! We had a fantastic time at the University of Washington's Engineering Days! The students were engaged, respectful, and enthusiastic about the exhibits. I must thank our chaperones: Jason (Katie), Karyn (Kate), Gunilla (Linnea), Karen (Rose), and Kristen (Zach) for taking time out of their day to accompany us! Read below to see what else we've been learning this week!

 

Virtues Awards:

Jack M. has earned a Virtues Award for showing the virtue of COURAGE. Jack took a risk by sharing his mathematical strategy and thinking with his classmates. His explanation helped other students understand the math concept!

 

Sarah Z. has earned a Virtues Award for showing the virtues of COMPASSION and FLEXIBILITY. Sarah willingly volunteered to make a switch for our field trip in order to help another classmate. Thank you Sarah!

 

Reading:

Our purpose in reading this week integrated with our Social Studies unit of study. We read different accounts of the Boston Tea Party in order to gain a deeper understanding of this historical event. We analyzed the purpose of the "tea party" and the cause/effect relationship that led up to it.

 

Writing:

We finished our persuasive essay pre-test. Students worked independently to publish their writing. We also used our Social Studies unit as an avenue for writing. We wrote friendly letters describing the Boston Tea Party and our character's feelings about the event. Students needed to use evidence and real event details in their letters to demonstrate their understanding of the historical significance.

 

 

Math:

Students wrote situation and solution equations for word problems. This is a particularly challenging concept, but an important one because it lays the foundation needed for understanding complex word problems and how to solve them using algebraic reasoning. We also worked with the Order of Operations (Parentheses, Exponents, Multiplication, Division, Addition, Subtraction or "Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally"). Through PEMDAS, students are learning to copy down the expressions accurately and write down their steps to ensure they are using the correct order of operations to solve the problem. We ended the week learning about how to read and plot points on a coordinate plane! Whew - and we only had four days of Math this week because of the field trip!!

 

Science:

Our seeds have started to germinate! Students wrote detailed observations about their terrariums, measured their plants, and made sure the environmental factors are conducive for the plants. Some students made modifications to their terrariums by planting more seeds or removing the top to allow room for growth.

 

 

 

Social Studies:

"Rally Mohawks, grab your axes! Tell King George we'll pay NO TAXES!" We learned how the Sons of Liberty orchestrated this historical event in American History. Sam Adams, with the single phrase, "This meeting can do no more to save the country" sent about fifty disguised colonists to the wharf to throw tea overboard. Students were shocked to learn that not a single tea leaf was stolen, no damage was made to the three British ships carrying the tea, and the decks were swept clean once the tea was dumped into the harbor. The Boston Tea Party was not a robbery, it was a protest. Patriots sent a clear message to King George.

 

What a wonderful week of sunshine and learning in Room 210! Thank you for your continued support of our work here at school. There are only 37 days left, but we still have so much to do and learn!

 

Enjoy your weekend,

 

~Mrs. Hatlestad

 

Upcoming Events:

 

29-April - PAGE presentation, Setting Your Kids Up For Success:  Beyond IQ, Sammamish High School Auditorium, 7:00pm (doors open at 6:30)

02-May - Talent Show Dress Rehearsal, 2:45pm

03-May - All unclaimed Lost & Found items to be donated

03-May - Talent Show, 6:00pm 

13-May - MSP - MATH

14-May  -Crash Field trip at SCT

15-May - MSP - READING

20-May - MSP - SCIENCE

22-May - Garbology Pacific Science Center session (in our classroom)

27-May - No School in observance of Memorial Day

07 - June-Medina Elementary Family Night at Safeco Field

19 - June-Last Day of School

Right Back At It!

A Week in Review

April 15 - 19

 

Welcome back from Spring Break! We got right back into our groove, even with a week off! We've been busy this week, here's what we've been up to:

 

Virtues Awards:

Alexandria B. has earned a Virtues Award for showing the virtues of compassion and helpfulness. She took time to help a classmate find their instrument for band. Thank you Alexandria!

 

Tim P. has earned a Virtues Award for showing the virtue of diligence. Tim works hard to complete his assignments with quality work and turn them in on time! Way to go Tim!

Reading:

We've continued our read aloud, Johnny Tremain, with Mrs. Bethel's (Ms. Holmes) class. This historical fiction novel is aligning with our study of Colonial Boston and the time period leading up to the Revolutionary War. We use read aloud as an avenue for modeling comprehension strategies, as well as, asking higher level thinking questions to get students thinking critically about the text.



Writing:
Our last writing assessment of the year is approaching. Students will need to write a persuasive essay! In order to guide my instruction, students are working on a "pre-test" by writing a persuasive essay. The assignment was quite open-ended. Students self-selected their topic and audience, I will use their writing to help me plan lessons based on their strengths with persuasive writing and areas of need. The topics they've chosen range from asking their parents for something (a horse, a trip to Disneyland) to writing to Mrs. Hamilton, asking for longer recesses!

MATH

This week in Math we began Unit 8: Algebra, Functions, and Graphs! We started by learning how to: use exponents and the Order of Operations to simplify expressions and solve equations. We also completed prime factorization of composite numbers and learned how to use the prime factorization to find ALL of the factors for a given number. It was quite a bit of new information that took a lot of focus and practice but students are off to a wonderful start in this unit!

 

SCIENCE          

Barley, clover, radishes, peas, and corn, OH MY! We got to start our first investigation this week in our Environments Unit! Students are determining what type of environmental factors best support a healthy living condition for their plants. Each group has been in charge of planting and growing seeds in a terrarium, and many of them are beginning to sprout!

 

SOCIAL STUDIES    

In our StoryPath Social Studies unit, we learned about the Boston Massacre. Students reacted to the events through discussion in a town meeting and by reading different accounts of this historical event. We had rich discussions about the event and how deciding who was to blame (colonists or British soldiers) was not an easy question to answer. We ended the week by drafting up friendly letters telling family back home in Britain about the Boston Massacre. These letters will help me assess what students have learned.

 

MSP

As we get ready to take the MSP, students will begin receiving MSP practice packets for Reading, Science, and Math. Students are to complete them at home and return to school so we can discuss answers together.

As you can see, we had a full week! I am looking forward to next week when hopefully this rain will go away and we can enjoy some sunshine!

Have a wonderful weekend J

~Mrs. Hatlestad

 

Upcoming Events:

23- April- Spring session of Lego Club begins

23- April- Talent Show Tryouts

26- April-UW Engineering Day Field trip

03-May- Talent Show

13-May-MSP - MATH

14-May-Crash Field trip

15-May-MSP - READING

20-May-MSP - SCIENCE

22-May - Garbology Pacific Science Center session (in our classroom)

27-May-No School in observance of Memorial Day

07-June-Medina Elementary Family Night at Safeco Field

19-June-Last Day of School



A Night to Remember

A Week in Review

April 1 - 5

 

 

Dear Families in Room 210,

 

Thank you for an AMAZING Heritage Night! Wow! It was an enjoyable evening, filled with delicious food, excellent presentations, and a fun family evening. I was so impressed with how poised and confident the students were as they presented their Heritage Project and shared what they learned. I know that a lot of work went into this project and I am so grateful for all that you have done to ensure your student's success. Each and every student  not only grew as a writer and public speaker, they now have a family keepsake, one that they will cherish for years to come. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

 

 

Virtue Awards:

 

Safa A. has earned a Virtues Award for demonstrating the virtues of self-discipline and excellence. Safa continually looks for ways to go above and beyond the expectations. She is focused and hardworking!

 

Ethan T. has earned a Virtues Award for demonstrating the virtue of reliability. Ethan consistently completes his work on time, shows respect to his peers and teachers, and understands the importance of hard work. Ethan, you are an excellent role model!

 

 

Literacy:

We began having individual goal setting conferences. Students worked with me to analyze their reading and writing assessment scores in order to set developmentally appropriate goals. I look forward to finishing these conferences when we return from Spring Break! We also worked on using context clues around unknown words to figure out its meaning, particularly focusing on multiple-meaning words that can sometimes cause road blocks in our comprehension.

 

 

Math:

Unit 7 Multiplication and Division with Whole Numbers and Decimals has come to an END! Student worked this week to practice the strategies they learned as

well as learning mean, median, mode, and range. We also discussed outlier and gaps when referring to statistics and graphing. Students will take the end-of-unit assessment when we return from Spring Break.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Science:

We read from our Environments Science Stories book this week. Students learned about terrestrial environments around the world and how they are divided into subgroups. We will begin our final science unit of the year, Environments, when we return from break! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Social Studies:

Taxes?!? Soldiers?!? Yes, we have immersed ourselves fully into Colonial Boston! The British Parliament has taxed our sugar, paper, and now we are being forced to follow the Quartering Act (where we have to provide food and lodging to the British soldiers). We are outraged! We had a protest march (in the office) we carried signs and chanted, "No taxation without representation".

 

In order for students to truly understand the impact the taxes had on the colonists, in our classroom they are being taxed with class dollars to: use the bathroom, the stapler, and for any paper they use.

 

 

Again, THANK YOU for attending Heritage Night and celebrating your student's hard work! Thank you for the delicious food and all of the help cleaning up, it went so quickly and smoothly, I truly appreciated it! I have to give a special thank you to our fabulous room mom's Deena (Isabelle) and Karyn (Kate) for the extra help they provided to make Heritage Night a huge success. Also, to the entire O'Hara family (Kate) for being the first to arrive to help set-up and the last to leave after cleaning up, THANK YOU.

Enjoy Spring Break, the students truly deserve it – they have worked hard!!

 

~Mrs. Hatlestad

 

Upcoming Events:

15-April - Spring session of Smart with Art begins

16-April - Spring session of Math4Love begins

17-April - Talent Show Tryout Sign-Ups posted

17-April - Second Annual Medina Elementary Spelling Bee, 6:00pm

19-April - Medina Elementary Family Movie Night, doors open 6:00pm

23-April - Spring session of Lego Club begins

23-April - Talent Show Tryouts, 2:45pm

02-May - Talent Show Dress Rehearsal, 2:45pm

03-May - Talent Show, 6:00pm

13-May - Math 5th Grade MSP

14-May - 5th Grade Field Trip: Seattle Children's Theater, Crash

15-May - Reading 5th Grade MSP

20-May- Science 5th Grade MSP

07-June - Medina Elementary Family Night at Safeco Field