Weekly Update with the Alites-October 19th

Welcome to our Blog! Read on to find out about many of the wonderful things going on in our classroom! -Alites

Election Propaganda

 Brian and Steph

In Computer Lab this week, we did an activity about the election. We looked at President Obama’s campaign commercials, and thought about how he used propaganda to influence voters. Then we did the same for Governor Romney. President Obama had a hilarious commercial about Mitt Romney cutting funding for Big Bird. It was meant to make Romney look silly and was a good example of propaganda. After seeing 4 ads for each candidate, most of the class remains undecided.

Making Meaning

By Sakina, Emilie and Austin

Every week we read Time For Kids. This week we used it to learn about text features and how to preview and prepare when reading an article. We also made posters.  Each of the groups got different topics to work on. We had to label the text features. Some of them were captions, pictures, words in italics, bold words, and carrots.   

Nowhere  But The Book Fair

By Madeline and Sanjyot

This week we went to go pick out the new books we wanted at the book fair. There were books of all genres. Boy books, girl books and mixes. There were dog books, cupcake books,  picture books etc. When we purchased our books we could donate money to help buy books for other libraries. The book fair is one of the highlights of the year!

 

Read Aloud

By Logan and Kyra

We have started a new read aloud called, Tuck Everlasting. This book is by Natalie Babbit. The characters in this book so far are Winnie Foster, Mae and Angus Tuck. The setting of this book  is in a small town called Treegap, near a forest, and takes place in the 1800s. So far,  Mae Tuck has set out  to meet her sons for a reunion. There is something mysterious about the Tuck Family! We are excited to read on.

Visit With Jack Gantos

By Adam and Becca

On Monday we visited the Jericho Public Library. We met Jack Gantos. He wrote the Joey Pigza books. He told us about how it takes a lot of drafts to publish his books. He shared his fifth grade journal with us.  We were able to ask Jack Gantos different questions like, “What was your favorite Joey Pigza book?” Getting to meet Jack Gantos was a big honor. Afterwards we were able to chat, eat munchkins, and mingle with Jack Gantos. We had so much fun! 

Music Time

By Yunseo, Michael, Steven

This is a special coverage of what we have done so far in music this year. We just took  a test on the words to the Star Spangled Banner. We are also singing a Calypso song from Trinidad called Water Come a Me Eye. We also auditioned for instruments to play in the concert.  Music is taught by the talented Mrs. Hussey. We will be sure to keep you posted.

Math

 By Rachel and Trevor

 In math this week we learned about exponents. We split up in groups and worked on a sheet to help us learn what exponents are. We played a game on the Smartboard where we were given an exponential problem to solve before time ran out. We all had a lot of fun playing this game. For example,  if the problem was 5 to the 2^nd power, it would be 5x5 not 2x5. 

Also this week, we learned about multiplying decimals. We learned that if the problem was 2.5 x 3.7, we would have to put the decimal two spaces in from the product. We did a fast facts quiz to see how fast we could do them in 5 minutes. We had a lot of fun in math this week!

Squid Dissection

 By Chris and Daniel

 This week in science we dissected squid. It was fun but a little gross. We cut open its ink sack and wrote with the ink. We all saw the squid’s internal structure. The mantel is soft. The siphon takes in water and shoots it out. We can't wait to go back to science.

Writing

By Caitlin and PJ

 We have been writing our wonderful stories. First we wrote down the stories in our writer’s notebook, then we drafted them on lined paper, now we are revising. We replaced boring words with more vivid words. One of the words that Caitlin changed was small. Caitlin changed small to wee.  PJ changed the word said to plead.

 

Groups working on Time For Kids Text Features

 

 

 Mingling With Jack Gantos at the Jericho Public Library

 Squid Dissection in the Science Lab!