Bacon's Weekly Bits
Friday, April 8, 2016
Week-At-A-Glance
In reading, we are working in Book Clubs. We are working on our vocabulary and context clues. Meaning, when we are reading and we come to a word we do not recognize or know the meaning. We are able to look at the surrounding words for clues. The clues will help us figure out what the word means. In addition to vocabulary, we are also looking for clues about the character and how the character develops. For example, in Deep,Dark, and Dangerous the mom keeps trying to end a conversation; she rubs her temples; she speaks in a shrill tone; she denies/avoids talking about the picture...we can infer that mom is hiding something. She has a secret. We can also use our understanding and development of this character to predict that she knows the girl who went missing. Finally, we are learning to infer. We will be working to start applying this to our reading in the next week or/and two.
In writing, we are working on research for our informational writing and our Famous Missourian speech. We are using sources to collect facts. We are using multiple sources to integrate our knowledge and understanding of a significant historical figure (particularly from or related to Missouri).
In Science, we started learning about the different forms of Energy: potential, kinetic, chemical, nuclear, mechanical, electric, and light. We are starting to explore how we use energy on a daily basis, for almost everything we do. As we begin to realize the importance of energy we will focus our study on electricity.
In Social Studies, we have added democracy and citizens to our understanding and concepts about government. Specifically, students were able to experience a simulation of a citizenship test (created from a study guide). The first few questions were "so easy." This "test" is posted on Google Classroom; ask to check it out if they didn't show you! This simulation also brought up a very interesting conversation about the requirements to become a citizen. So, I asked about their opinion regarding citizens. Should we allow people from other countries to move to the United States and become a citizen? Should they be required to become a citizen before moving or after moving? This led to a whole different conversation; after experiencing the test some thought we should protect the United States (not letting immigrants move in without citizenship) and others thought we should let immigrants become citizens. I shared that this exact conversation is so interesting because it is a platform for political candidates...which again, took a whole life of it's own. Again, we had to talk about respectfully disagreeing and respecting others opinions. They all thought they knew who they would vote for (and I shared that it was a very hard decision for me based on the different issues). This led to surveying our own Presidential choices. We used the website http://www.isidewith.com/ which is not affiliated with any political party or candidate. We determined who we "think" we would vote for based on the survey (and although they want to know my vote, I shared that it is private). To keep this conversation school appropriate they were not allowed to answer any questions about social issues or drugs. They went wild with excitement as results were revealed. Talk about student engagement, their learning was contagious!
In Math, we are relating fractions to decimals in the tenth and hundreds places. Additionally, students are review Geometry. The concept is new and they are demonstrating understanding of reading and writing the fractions as a decimal.
Homework!
Ms. Bacon's Classr Info
Email: jbacon@liberty.k12.mo.us
Website: https://sites.google.com/a/student.liberty.k12.mo.us/bacon/
Location: 8150 N Farley Ave, KCMO, MO, United States
Phone: (816) 736-5600
Twitter: @jbacon3