The Bissinger Beacon
May 2016
Reader's Workshop
Writer's Workshop
Authors brushed up on personal narrative writing skills. We learned two strategies to generate ideas and brainstorm. First, we used bulleted lists to highlight special people in our lives, and secondly made lists of special places. Our goal is to incorporate sensory details within our writing and draft strong paragraphs with action, dialogue and thoughts and feelings.
Researchers began our final writing genre...informational texts! Students were thrilled to learn that our topic will be the American Revolution as we gathered information about this period in U.S. History. Students understand that writers of an informational text imagine the parts of the text they are going to make and understand that informational text writers come up with a plan for their projects. We studied a model text to "begin with the end in mind." Researchers came up with a plan to structure their texts and selected a specific event within the American Revolution to become an expert on. Ask your child if they are focusing on the Boston Tea Party, Paul Revere, the Battles of Lexington and Concord or another topic! We have been reading non-fiction texts, researching using iPads and watching "Liberty Kids" clips to deepen our expertise on the Revolution.
Shark Tank Projects
Entrepreneurs began working cooperatively in teams on a new economics project. We will be advertising, designing and marketing new sneakers. Our project and final Prezi Presentation will be based off the premise of the show “Shark Tank." Shark Tank airs on ABC Friday nights at 9:00 p.m. We will watch a brief clip in school but if you happen to have any free time this week it may be beneficial for the kids to see a full show. ABC has a full episode player, and I’ve included the link below. Every episode I have seen is family-friendly and should be appropriate. Watching is completely optional; I know we all have very busy schedules! I also attached the entire shark tank project if you are curious. This project will be completed in school. Thanks for your ongoing support!
Economics
Students understand how assembly lines work and why they are so important. We discovered that Henry Ford was the first to use an assembly line to create vehicles that were affordable to the everyday family. We used Venn diagrams to compare and contrast a clip of Henry Ford's Model T assembly line, vs. how modern day Snickers Bars are made. We also distinguished between overhead and profit within a business.
Motion and Design
Up and Coming
5/13 Ice Cream Social 6:00-8:30pm
5/18 National Liberty Museum Trip
5/25 NJ Ask: Science
5/25 Spring Concert @ MS Auditorium 7:30-9:00pm