π Week & SBAC Dates

Important dates for the coming weeks:

• 3/11-3/15:  Book Fair
• 3/14:  Pi Day
• 3/15:  Dads and Donuts
• 3/15:  First Book Challenge Due for Book Challenge Party
• 3/15:  Green and Gold – Free Dress Day
• 3/20 – Field Trip

We have been given a tentative testing schedule for SBAC testing.  As we start buckling down to prepare for testing, I’ve told students they can bring a snack for our transition from math to writing.  Because we move and touch things, please do not send snacks like Cheetos and Doritos as the dust gets on or near Chromebooks and desks.  String cheese, veggie chips, pretzels, goldfish, and the like are great snacks.  If you’d like to pick up snacks for the class, we will use them.  The big bag of pretzels or goldfish are great, and individual bags are nice as well.  I can have the kids split up the bigger bags, and I know they are more economical.

MAPs testing dates will be forthcoming as well.  Testing Dates:

• 4/29:  SBAC ELA CAT
• 5/02:  SBAC ELA Part 1
• 5/07:  SBAC ELA Part 2 (This date may change as I have a conflict in school that day.  I’ll let you know as soon as I know)
  
• 5/10:  SBAC Math CAT
  
• 5/15:  SBAC Math Performance Task

Curriculum

• Students will:
  • Understand the function of homonyms v. homophones and and their functions in language.
  • Understand a fraction 1/b as the quantity formed by 1 part when a whole is partitioned into b equal parts; understand a fraction a/b as the quantity formed by a parts of size 1/b.
  • Demonstrate an understanding of informative/explanatory texts to examine a topic and convey ideas and information clearly.
  • Distinguish the literal and nonliteral meanings of words and phrases in context.

This week, we completed our unit on poetry and started working on detailing the differences between fact and opinion.  We also tied up our landforms and maps unit in social studies.  We started using number lines and drawings to represent and understand fractions.  We used RACES to respond to questions and write the beginning of informational text pieces.  In science some of us outran a dinosaur and some of us got chomped.